yes i sat and awed at that pic a while back. congrats.. i think you won the lottery with mole and gopher trapping...

Color morphs are not uncommon in fossorial mammals (not a big disadv. if you rarely come above ground).

I have a couple of friends working on the genetics of coat colors in natural populations of small mammals. A donation of frozen specimen to a natural history museum is highly recommended (if you are just tossing them aside).

I caught several of these Mazama Pocket Gophers in Oregon this summer. It's a black morph subspecies...there are areas of all black and others areas with a mix colors.

I'm trying to figure out how to attach the photo in the message and failed.

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I Would get that one mounted.Steve don't think you'll ever get another one like that.