The Pocket Gophers (Genus Thomomys) of Utah: University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History, Vol. 1 No. 1Durrant, Stephen David
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The Pocket Gophers (Genus Thomomys) of Utah: University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History, Vol. 1 No. 1
Durrant, Stephen David
Pocket gophers -- Utah
The history of pocket gophers of Utah begins with J. A. Allen's mention
in 1874 of mounds of these animals. For them he employed the name
"_Thomomys rufescens?_" (1874:65). Actual specimens were reported upon
a year later by Elliot Coues (1875:251, 256), who used the name
_Thomomys talpoides_ for specimens from "Utah" but later in the same
paper listed specimens from Provo as _Thomomys talpoides bulbivorus_.
Even as the great variation in Utah pocket gophers has been perplexing
to modern workers, so it was also to Coues seventy years ago who left
the problem with the statement that animals from Provo "exhibit among
themselves such variations that their labelling becomes a matter of
indifference"! In the same year in another report, Coues and Yarrow
(1875:112) used the name _Thomomys talpoides umbrinus_ for animals from
Provo. In 1877, Coues again referred these same animals to _Thomomys
talpoides bulbivorus_, using the name _umbrinus_ for the animals of
only southern Utah (Coues, 1877:627, 628). The two names _Thomomys
bottae_ and _Thomomys talpoides_, now applicable to gophers in Utah,
were synonomized under the name _Thomomys talpoides bulbivorus_ by
Coues (1875:256; 1877:627). After this beginning only three other
papers, all by J. A. Allen, appeared in the next twenty years. They
were reports on collections of mammals made by Walter W. Granger and
Charles P. Rowley. One of these contained the description of _Thomomys
aureus_. Likewise, in the ensuing twenty years there were only three
papers, one in 1901 by C. Hart Merriam in which he described _Thomomys
uinta_, one by Allen (1905:119), and Vernon Bailey's (1915) "Revision
of the pocket gophers of the genus _Thomomys_" in which he summarized
the information then available on these animals within the state.
Barnes (1922 and 1927) reprinted the information summarized by Bailey.
Since 1927 approximately twenty-five papers, mostly taxonomic, have
been published in which reference is made to Utah gophers, and
especially since 1930 much information has been accumulated about the
distribution and speciation of this genus within the state.
Specimens to the number of 1,045 have been available for this study.
Whereas Bailey (_loc. cit._) listed only four kinds belonging to four
different species, thirty-five kinds are now known from Utah. Seven of
these are herein described as new. The thirty-five kinds are found to
belong to only two instead of four full species.
Inasmuch as the literature is scattered and since names have been
applied in different ways at different times, I have attempted to give
a synonomy as complete as possible for each form found within the
state.
The bibliographies of Hayward (1936 and 1941) and Miller's (1924) "List
of North American mammals" have been of great use.
Capitalized color terms in the accounts are after Ridgway, Color
Standards and Color Nomenclature, Washington, D. C., 1912.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
The Pocket Gophers (Genus Thomomys) of Utah: University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History, Vol. 1 No. 1 — John Shaqi
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