pocket gopher

American  

noun

1. any of numerous burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae, of western and southern North America and Central America, having large, external, fur-lined cheek pouches.

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pocket gopher British  

noun

1. the full name for gopher

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Etymology

Origin of pocket gopher

1870–75, Amer.

Example Sentences

When the Mazama pocket gopher, native to Thurston and Pierce Counties, was added to the endangered species list in late 2014, Thurston County builders and realtors sounded the alarm.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 11, 2019

It turned out to be a fancy name for rodent exterminator," says Frederick Lee Hisaw, now 64, "and one of the rodents I was to exterminate was the pocket gopher.

From Time Magazine Archive

Inside the boundaries of the monument, where by law people are not allowed to assist regeneration, a mammalian equivalent of the bulldozer has been the pocket gopher.

From Time Magazine Archive

Several kinds of mammals are known only from this "biological island" including the pocket gopher mentioned above and the shrew, Sorex milleri.

From Two New Moles (Genus Scalopus) from Mexico and Texas by Baker, Rollin H. (Rollin Harold)

The prairie hens began to seek seclusion in the swales, and the pocket gopher, busily mining the sod, threw up his purple-brown mounds of cool fresh earth.

From A Son of the Middle Border by Garland, Hamlin