![pocket gopher pocket gopher](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MDrpfDBx2mgXYTyxgfbW5w_sQkU=/0x290:2666x2067/1200x800/filters:focal(0x290:2666x2067)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/43955804/20130108_kkt_ah7_236.0.jpg)
However, after isolating 12 tunnel sections from gopher activity for up to 44 days each, roots from other surface plants such as sorrel ( Rumex hastulatum) and common beggarticks ( Bidens alba) filled the empty tubes. The study took place on a longleaf pine savanna in Florida, where Putz says that roots don’t typically grow down to the depths of the gopher tunnels, which averaged about 40 cm under the surface in this study. “If pocket gophers depended on the root food that they encountered while excavating, they would quickly starve to death,” says Putz. When the researchers estimated the energy gophers expend dislodging and pushing soil out of a tunnel, they found it far exceeded the caloric value estimated from the mass of roots the mammals would initially encounter in the tunnels. Digging this underground system requires hundreds to perhaps thousands of times more energy than walking over land, raising questions about how the rodents sustain themselves. Pocket gophers dig tunnel networks with lengths totaling up to 160 meters, the authors write in their paper, and they remain within them for most of their lives to avoid surface predators. The paper cites research showing that some species of ants, termites, and beetles engage in farming activities but notes that while experts may disagree on the semantics of what qualifies as farming, the pocket gopher is the first nonhuman mammal found to farm.
![pocket gopher pocket gopher](https://i2.wp.com/agfax.com/wp-content/uploads/pocket_gopher_wikipedia.jpg)
are actually farming roots in the extensive tunnel systems that they maintain presumably for that purpose,” says Putz. Their hard work paid off, leading to the insight that significant root ingrowth into the tunnels provides a food source that the pocket gophers seem to cultivate, according to research published today (July 11) in Current Biology.
![pocket gopher pocket gopher](https://apps.carleton.edu/reason_package/reason_4.0/www/images_local/1688856.png)
In the end, to isolate short tunnel segments for study, Putz and his student Veronica Selden had to carefully dig in rings and bury hollowed-out cylindrical barrels that served as 360-degree blockades around 57 cm-long sections of tunnel.
POCKET GOPHER MOVIE
The pocket gopher, immortalized as Carl Spackler’s fossorial nemesis in the movie Caddyshack, dug around the researcher’s barricades, filled in the section isolated for study, blocked it off from surrounding tunnel connections, and proceeded to burrow elsewhere. “And then we got outsmarted by a pocket gopher,” Putz, a biologist at University of Florida, tells The Scientist. First, they tried to block two ends off with aluminum plates. When Jack Putz and his student decided to study root growth in southeastern pocket gopher ( Geomys pinetis) tunnels, they didn’t realize how difficult it would be to isolate sections of the underground structures. ABOVE: Southeastern pocket gopher ( Geomys pinetis) Houston Wells