A new study finds gophers graze on roots that grow into their tunnels—which could be the first example of nonhuman mammals doing a kind of farming.
Months before making a ground-breaking pocket gopher discovery, Veronica Selden arrived at a grassy pasture in Gainesville, Florida, with two shovels, three oil barrels, and a question: Why were these small animals building such big tunnels? The answer, according to a new study, is that the gophers graze on roots that grow into their tunnels, in what Selden and others say could be the first example of nonhuman mammals doing a kind of farming.
Pocket gophers—brown rodents about the size and shape of a guinea pig—eat mostly roots, stems, and some aboveground weeds and grasses. They spend most of their lives alone in underground tunnel networks longer than a U.S. football field, going aboveground only occasionally to forage and mate. The animals spend a lot of energy digging out those long tunnels—an activity that also makes them vulnerable to predators.
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