Sympatry of Pocket Gophers on Mesa de Maya, Colorado
Abstract
Geographic and ecologic relationships among the four species of pocket gophers that occur in Colorado have stimulated considerable interest (see, for example, Miller, 1964), but much remains to be learned about their distribution and natural history. The purposes of this note are to report new distributional data in Colorado for Thomomys bottae and Pappoge(mys c astanops and to document the second known instance of sympatry between those species. In summer of 1978, specimens of T. bottcle and P. ( astclnops were trapped on Mesa de Maya, a relatively large? isolated mesa in a sparsely populated region of southeastern Colorado, northeastern New Mexico? and the northwestern part of the panhandle of Oklahoma (see detailed description by Rogers, 1953). Neither species previously was known from the mesa although peripheral populations of both had been reported in Las Animas County, Colorado (Armstrong 1972: 150-152, 168), and Union Countyz New Mexico ( Findley et al . ? 1975: 147150, 154155) . Specimens of T. bottcle were obtained at the following localities in Las Animas Co., Colorado: 9 mi. S, 16 mi. W Kim (5 specimens); 9 mi. S, 151/2 mi. W Kim (2); 91/2 mi. S, 16 mi. W Kim (1); 91/2 mi. S, 15 mi. W Kim (I); 91/2 mi. S, 14 mi. W Kim (1); 91/2 mi. S, 131/2 mi. W Kim (1). Specimens of P. cclstnops likewise were obtained at the following localities: 81/2 mi. S, 10 mi. W Kim (1); 91/2 mi. S, 14 mi. W Kim (1); 91/2 mi. S, 13 mi. W Kim (2); 10 mi. S, 13 mi. W Kim (2). These localities lie approximately along an east-west transect, the western end of which apparently was occupied only by T. bottcle and the eastern end only by P. ( clstunops . However specimens of both species were trapped (from mounds about 20 m apart) at the site 91/2 mi. S, 14 mi. W Kim, and the distributions of the two species overlapped geographically by approximately one-half mile at that location. Sympatry of Thomomy5 and Pclppogeomya is thought to be rare (Russell, 1968:758-759). To the best of our knowledge the only published reports of sympatry of these genera are in Michoacan (Hall and Villa, 1949:451-452; Russell, 1968:758-759) and western Texas (Reichman and Baker, 1972) and the latter of these is the only documented instance of sympatry between T. bottclf and P. (c*tcxnop. Best (1973:1316) studied pocket gophers in north-
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