Pocket Gopher

Northern Pocket Gopher, Thomomys talpoides. Courtesy NPS, Gillian Bowser, Photographer
Northern Pocket Gopher
Thomomys talpoides
Courtesy NPS
Gillian Bowser, Photographer

Click for a larger view of Pocket Gopher Surface Mound with Open Entrance Hole. Courtesy Lyle Bingham, Photographer Pocket Gopher Mound
with open entrance hole
Courtesy
Lyle Bingham, Photographer

While hiking mountains meadows in spring, you will likely encounter earthen tubes that meander across the soil surface. These are remnants of the winter tunnels of pocket gophers. Often called ropes, these dirt cores result from pocket gophers burrowing for food all winter long. They dig under the snow, backfilling their tunnels with dirt. Another surface clue to pocket gophers’ presence are the hills of soil that they push to the surface. The tunnel opening in the hill is closed with an earthen plug.

Pocket gophers are superbly adapted for their subterranean lifestyle. Their eyes and ears are tiny. In compensation for poor eyesight, they have long whiskers or vibrissae on their snout. The vibrissae are very sensitive to touch and allow them to navigate in their dark tunnels. In reverse, they rely on their stubby, hairless tails to guide them as they run backwards.

These little rodents have formidable tools for digging. Their front claws are long and stout and powered by impressive shoulder muscles. As with all rodents, the incisor teeth grow constantly, offsetting the abrasion of biting through hard soil and roots. Cleverly, the lips close behind their front teeth which keeps their mouth clean of dirt. These gophers really do have pockets: fur-lined cheek pouches which they use to carry food to the storage areas of their burrows.

Pocket gophers are vegetarians, eating roots and bulbs below ground and stems and leaves above. Their plant diet and tunneling cause many farmers and homeowners to consider them a terrible nuisance, but pocket gophers also contribute to a healthy ecosystem. One pocket gopher will move up to 4 tons of soil each year, alleviating soil compaction. They bring fresh mineral soil to the surface and fertilize belowground with their droppings and leftover stashes of vegetation. Their tunnels provide habitat for other animals that live underground. Many mammals, birds and snakes dine on pocket gophers.

If you find a gopher mound, try watching quietly. If you are really lucky, as our Wild About Utah web guru, Lyle Bingham was, you may see one pop its little head out for a quick look around.

Credits:

Images: Courtesy NPS, Gillian Bowser, Photographer
Theme: Courtesy & Copyright Don Anderson Leaping Lulu
Text: Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon Society https://www.bridgerlandaudubon.org
Video:

Additional Reading:

Pocket Gophers – About Exploring the Nature of Wyoming
University of Wyoming Extension

Northern Pocket Gopher — Thomomys talpoides. Montana Field Guide. Montana Natural Heritage Program and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Retrieved on April 30, 2013, from https://fieldguide.mt.gov/detail_AMAFC01040.aspx

About Exploring the Nature of Wyoming, University of Wyoming Extension, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frfxuO6oYkA

Wiscomb, Gerald W., Messmer,Terry A., Pocket Gophers, Wildlife Damage Management Series, Utah State University Cooperative Extension, https://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/NR_WD_005.pdf

Pocket Gophers, Identification, School IDM, Utah Pests, Utah State University Cooperative Extension, https://extension.usu.edu/pests/schoolipm/structural-pest-id-guide/pocket-gophers

On Being Misunderstood:: Pocket Gophers, The Metropolitan Field Guide, https://www.metrofieldguide.com/on-being-misunderstood-pocket-gophers/

Pocket Gophers, Living with Wildlife, Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, Washington State, https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/living/species-facts/pocket-gophers

Cryptobiotic Soil Crusts

Click to view larger image of Cryptobiotic Soil Crust, Photo Courtesy and Copyright Mark Larese-Casanova
Cryptobiotic Soil Crust
Photo Courtesy & Copyright 2009
Mark Larese-Casanova

Hi, this is Mark Larese-Casanova from the Utah Master Naturalist Program at Utah State University Extension.

Looking out over a Utah desert, we might see relatively few plants- perhaps some sagebrush, maybe a few junipers or Joshua trees, or even some small wildflowers or cacti. What is less noticeable, though, is the living soil crust that holds this entire landscape together. It’s not just sand, but rather an important and vast partnership between bacteria, lichens, algae, and fungi. These soil crusts are often referred to as ‘cryptobiotic’, which means ‘living in suspended animation’. This is a fitting description, considering that water can be so rare in Utah’s deserts.

Cyanobacteria, which is often called blue-green algae, is the backbone of cryptobiotic soil crust. Vast networks of long, microscopic filaments of cyanobacteria and fungi grow in length when they are wet, and leave behind a casing that literally binds the soil together. So, what might otherwise be loose sand not only is less likely to be washed away by water or blown away by wind, but also is able to hold much more water for plants.

Click to view larger image of Cryptobiotic Soil Crust, Photo Courtesy and Copyright Mark Larese-Casanova
Cryptobiotic Soil Crust
Photo Courtesy & Copyright 2009
Mark Larese-Casanova

Cyanobacteria is also extremely useful to desert landscapes for its ability to take Nitrogen out of the air and make it available to plant roots in the soil. Desert soils typically have relatively low nutrients, so this is especially important to desert plants.

In many Utah deserts, cryptobiotic soil crusts can cover up to 70% of the ground surface. Old soil crust can often look like small mountain ranges with black or white peaks inhabited by lichens or mosses. The little valleys in between the tiny mountains of crust are perfect spots for the seeds of desert plants to grow. Over time, the above ground crust can grow up to ten centimeters, or four inches, thick!

However, cryptobiotic soil crust grows at an alarmingly slow rate of about one millimeter per year. So, any soil crust that is disturbed can take a very long time to recover. Depending on the amount of moisture a desert receives, it can take anywhere between 20 and 250 years for soil crust to grow back.

Next time you’re out in the desert, kneel down and have a close look at the telltale peaks and valleys of cryptobiotic soil crust. If you bring a magnifying glass, you just might be able to see some of the lichens and mosses. Be sure to stay on trail, though, and whatever you do, don’t bust that crust!

For Wild About Utah, I’m Mark Larese-Casanova.

Credits:

Images: Courtesy and copyright Mark Larese-Casanova
Text:     Mark Larese-Casanova, Utah Master Naturalist Program at Utah State University Extension.
Additional Reading:

US Department of Interior. 2001. Biological Soil Crusts: Ecology and Management. Bureau of Land Management Technical Reference 1730-2., https://www.blm.gov/nstc/library/pdf/CrustManual.pdf
Rosentreter, R., M. Bowker, and J. Belnap. 2007. A Field Guide to Biological Soil Crusts of Western U.S. Drylands. U.S. Government Printing Office, Denver, Colorado., https://www.soilcrust.org/

May Swenson: Observer of nature and Utah poet

May Swenson: Observer of nature and Utah poet: Click for larger picture, May Swenson, 1965 in Tucson Copyright  L.H. Clark, Courtesy Utah State University Press
May Swenson, 1965 in Tucson
Copyright © L.H. Clark
Courtesy Utah State University Press

Hi, I’m Holly Strand from Stokes Nature Center in beautiful Logan Canyon.

In Logan Cemetery a granite bench marks the grave of May Swenson, a native Utahn and eminent poet. She was born in Logan in 1913 and attended Utah State University where she published her first poem. She moved east in 1936, and eventually, she became one of America’s most inventive and recognized poets, She won many awards including Guggenheim and Rockefeller grants, the Yale Bollingen Prize, and the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Utah State University conferred an honorary doctorate on Swenson in 1987. Despite her many achievements and her years living away from Utah, Swenson never forgot her Mormon heritage or her identity as a Westerner.

Nature played a prominent role in Swenson’s work. In fact, she published a collection of poetry called Nature: Poems Old and New which is brimming with imagery that evokes the beauty and complexity of the natural world.

Here’s an example: a poem called April Light read by Paul Crumbley, a professor of English at Utah State University who specializes in Swenson’s work.

April light
Lined with light
the twigs are stubby arrows.
A gilded trunk writhes
Upward from the roots,
from the pit of the black tentacles.
In the book of spring
a bare-limbed torso
is the first illustration.
Light teaches the tree
to beget leaves,
to embroider itself all over
with green reality,
until summer becomes
its steady portrait
and birds bring their lifetime
to the boughs.
Then even the corpse
light copies from below
may shimmer, dreaming it feels
the cheeks of blossom.

Another of Swenson’s poems describes a well-known natural feature in Utah.

Listen to this excerpt of Above Bear Lake:

A breeze, and the filtered light makes shine
A million bristling quills of spruce and fir
Downslope, where slashes of sky and lake
Hang blue—windows of intense stain. We take
The rim trail, crushing bloom of sage,
Sniffing resinous wind, our boots in the wild,
Small, everycolored Rocky Mountain flowers.
Suddenly, a steep drop-off: below we see the whole,
the whale of it—deep, enormous blue—
that widens, while the sky slants back to pale

behind a watercolored mountain.

Listening to this makes me feel like I’m standing on the scenic outlook at the summit of Logan Canyon. That is, of course, where Swenson wrote it.

For more on the Utah poet May Swenson, see our website www.wildaboututah.org
Thanks to Paul Crumbley and Maria Melendez of the English Dept. at Utah State University.
And thanks to the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation for supporting the research and development for today’s program.

For Wild About Utah and Stokes Nature Center, I’m Holly Strand.

Credits:

Readings: Paul Crumbley and Maria Melendez of the English Dept, Utah State University

Text: Stokes Nature Center: Holly Strand

Learn More:

Knudson, R.R. and Suzzanne Bigelow. 1996. May Swenson: A Poet’s Life in Photos. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

Fossil Formation

Fossilized fish
Mioplosus labracoides
Copyright 2013 Stokes Nature Center
Andrea Liberatore, Photographer

Fossilized fish
Copyright 2013 Stokes Nature Center
Andrea Liberatore, Photographer

Horn Corals from Logan Canyon
Copyright 2013 Stokes Nature Center
Andrea Liberatore, Photographer

Fossilized leaf
Copyright 2013 Stokes Nature Center
Andrea Liberatore, Photographer

Fossilized shells
Copyright 2013 Stokes Nature Center
Andrea Liberatore, Photographer

The most popular school program that the Stokes Nature Center offers is a geology lesson for second grade. I’m not sure what happens between second grade and adulthood to make our general perception of geology go from exciting to boring, but you would be amazed at how excited second graders get over rocks, and especially, over fossils.

Fossils are really quite rare – a very specific set of conditions have to be met in order to create one. Most living things decompose fairly rapidly upon death, leaving no trace of their existence behind. In order to create a fossil, this process of decomposition needs to be halted fairly rapidly, which typically means that the body is quickly covered by some kind of sediment – like sand, or soil or mud. For this reason, most fossils are found embedded in sedimentary rock. If pressure and moisture levels are just right, over the course of millions of years the organism’s molecules will slowly be replaced by minerals from the surrounding sediments – eventually turning bone into stone.

Only somewhere around one in a billion bones will make it through this process. From there the fossil has to remain intact and identifiable through eons of tectonic plate movement, earthquakes, and mountain uplift. Then, in order to be found it has to be located near enough to the earth’s surface, and in such a place where a human might come across it. Some geologists estimate that only 1 in 10,000 species that have ever lived have made it into the known fossil record, which makes me wonder what discoveries still await us.

Fortunately for us, prehistoric Utah was a place where fossilization happened with some regularity, as evidenced by places like Dinosaur National Monument and the Escalante Petrified Forest. Did you know that Utah has a state fossil? That distinction goes to the allosaurus, a predatory dinosaur that thrived during the Late Jurassic period. Numerous skeletons found in east-central Utah range in size from 10 – 40 feet in length, meaning this fearsome creature may have rivaled it’s more famous cousin Tyrannosaurus Rex for top predator status.

With such a rich fossil history, it’s not out of the question that you might stumble onto something truly amazing during a routine hike. Can you keep your find? Well, that depends on two things: the type of fossil, and whose land it was found on. On public lands in Utah, fossils of vertebrates cannot be collected, while fossils of invertebrates and plants can be. Private land owners have full rights to the fossils found on their property. With all fossils, it’s a great idea to report your find to the US Geological Survey so that your discovery can be documented for public or scientific research, display or education.

Fossil creation is an incredible phenomenon that has allowed us to glimpse the earth’s history in ways that would otherwise be completely hidden. Thanks to fossils, we can envision a prehistoric landscape filled with giant ferns, enormous dragonflies, long-necked allosauruses, and flying pterodactyls. Without the evidence in the fossil record, I doubt that even the most imaginative person among us could have envisioned such an amazing array of life.

For the Stokes Nature Center and Wild About Utah, this is Andrea Liberatore.

Credits:

Photos: Courtesy & © Stokes Nature Center, logannature.org
Text:    Andrea Liberatore, Stokes Nature Center, logannature.org

Additional Reading:

State of Utah, Utah Geological Survey, Dinosaurs & Fossils (2011) https://geology.utah.gov/utahgeo/dinofossil/index.htm

McCalla, Carole and Eldredge, Sandy (2009) What should you do if you find a fossil? Utah Geological Survey. Accessible online at: https://geology.utah.gov/surveynotes/gladasked
/gladfossil_collecting.htm

Trefil, James (1996) 101 Things You Don’t Know About Science and Nobody Else Does Either. Houghton Mifflin Company: New York, NY, https://www.amazon.com/Things-Dont-About-Science-Either/dp/0395877407

Bryson, Bill (2003) A Short History of Nearly Everything. Broadway Books. New York, NY, https://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything-Illustrated/dp/0307885151