page_title: Camas pocket gopher
section_title: Clarifications
hierarchical_section_title: Camas pocket gopher / Taxonomy / Clarifications
caption_attribution_description: English: Exhibit in the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova, Via Brigata Liguria, 9, 16121, Genoa, Italy. Photography was permitted in the museum without restriction.
context_page_description: The camas pocket gopher, also known as the camas rat or Willamette Valley gopher, is a rodent, the largest member in the genus Thomomys, of the family Geomyidae. First described in 1829, it is endemic to the Willamette Valley of northwestern Oregon in the United States. The herbivorous gopher forages for vegetable and plant matter, which it collects in large, fur-lined, external cheek pouches. Surplus food is hoarded in an extensive system of tunnels. The dull-brown-to-lead-gray coat changes color and texture over the year. The mammal's characteristically large, protuberant incisors are well adapted for use in tunnel construction, particularly in the hard clay soils of the Willamette Valley. The gophers make chattering sounds with their teeth; males and females make purring sounds when they are together, and the young make twittering sounds. Born toothless, blind and hairless, the young grow rapidly before being weaned at about six weeks of age.
  Although the camas pocket gopher is fiercely defensive when cornered, it may become tame in captivity.
context_section_description: Although Baird and Elliott Coues were involved in early assessments of the genus, according to Allen neither ever saw a specimen of the camas pocket gopher (T. bulbivorus). Allen obtained and examined two large adults (male and female) collected in Beaverton, Oregon in May 1890 which were considerably larger and darker than previously examined specimens. Skull features and white markings around the mouth and anus also differed. His findings and the specimen-collection location helped identify the camas pocket gopher as a species separate from California gophers. The California specimens were classified by Eydoux and Gervais as Oryctomys bottae, now known as Thomomys bottae (Botta's pocket gopher). They were found near Monterey, California, over 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) south of the now-recognized range of the Camas pocket gopher.
  The distribution of Elliot's "great pocket gopher" (as it was known) extended along the California coast "north of San Francisco." James Audubon and John Bachman reassessed the taxonomy on the camas pocket gopher in the late 1800s. They referred it as the "camas rat". They reclassified the gopher as Pseudostoma borealis. They rejected Diplostoma as a genus, and assigned Diplostoma bulbivorum as synonymous with P. borealis. They attributed any differences described by Richardson to artifact, from a specimen that was "twisted and disfigured" in preparation. Based on observations of taxidermy specimens in Europe, they suggested that Townsend's pocket gopher (Geomys (Thomomys) townsendii) belonged to the same species. In 1875, the camas pocket gopher was reported as a sub-species of the northern pocket gopher (Thomomys talpoides),. During the 1920s H. M. Wight referred to it colloquially as the "Willamette Valley gopher".
caption: Taxidermied specimen in the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova, mislabeled "California"
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-RX100", "Image XResolution": "350", "Image YResolution": "350", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "DSC-RX100 v1.00", "Image DateTime": "2014:06:14 09:36:21", "Image Artist": "Picasa", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "292", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "15710", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4331", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/40", "EXIF FNumber": "49/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:09:26 06:20:40", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:09:26 06:20:40", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "3307/1280", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "587/128", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "371/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4293", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2604", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "5472", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "3648", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "15562", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "100", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "a9dd37a6080b4356dbdb721c92b08e93", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[52/5, 371/10, 9/5, 49/10]"}