What does it mean when you call someone a gopher?
informal. : an employee whose duties include running errands : lackey.
General Gopher Facts
Identifying Features: round, rodent body with soft fur; short neck and a flat head; fur-lined cheek pouches or “pockets” on either side of the mouth; thick whiskers; long, visible incisors; small ears and eyes; strong forequarters with long claws; short tail.
The origin of the word "gopher" is uncertain; the French gaufre, meaning waffle, has been suggested, on account of the gopher tunnels resembling the honeycomb-like pattern of holes in a waffle; another suggestion is that the word is of Muskogean origin.
� Behavior: Pocket gophers are very shy and timid, seldom leaving their underground tunnel systems. They prefer to pull plants down into the tunnel from below. They also store food for lean times in chambers off the main tunnel.
- The gopher is a resident of the dry plains. ...
- It was made of "gopher" wood, which has been variously identified with cypress, pine and cedar. ...
- Jackson set up the bar and Connor played gopher for everyone. ...
- I was pretty much his gopher at first, getting him wrenches and handing him parts.
Taxonomy and Natural History. Pocket gophers (commonly known as “gophers”) comprise the family Geomyidae within the order Rodentia. Their distribution extends from Central America to Canada, including the western, central, and southeastern United States.
Gophers are intelligent critters; if you don't know what you're doing, they can easily outsmart you. When a gopher escapes a trap, it learns from the experience. If a gopher detects the same trap, it'll fill it with dirt and reroute the tunnel.
Gophers are Herbivories and prefer eating plants. Here are a gopher's favorite foods: roots, tubers (like potatoes), grasses, and seeds. They are drawn to alfalfa, dandelions, bulbs, carrots, onions, garlic, perennial ragweed, sweet clover, pricky pear cacti, and many types of flowering plants.
Gophers usually live alone within their burrow system, except when females are caring for their young or during breeding season. Gopher densities can be as high as 60 or more per acre in irrigated alfalfa fields or in vineyards. Gophers reach sexual maturity at about 1 year of age and can live up to 3 years.
Gopher wood or gopherwood is a term used once in the Bible for the material used to construct Noah's ark. Genesis 6:14 states that Noah was instructed to build the Ark of gofer (גֹפֶר), commonly transliterated as gopher wood, a word not otherwise used in the Bible or the Hebrew language in general.
What are gophers afraid of?
Placing fish oil, peppermint oil, coffee grounds, or tabasco sauce on the ground near gopher tunnels is a good way to repel gophers. You can also apply these substances in the areas you want to protect, like your garden beds.
While gophers aren't dangerous, they can cause a lot of damage. Gophers can ruin gardens and yards with their constant digging, and their mounds can cause problems when it comes to mowing and yard maintenance. Gophers can also chew through things like cables, irrigation lines, and sprinkler systems.
Gophers have terrible eyesight, but they have a well-developed sense of smell. That's why they hate strong scents like sage, rosemary, eucalyptus, lavender, and more. These scents protect your garden and irritate gophers.
A gofer is someone whose job involves running various errands. A gofer in an office might deliver messages and fetch coffee, among other tasks.
a small burrowing furry rodent.
Gopher remains in active use by its enthusiasts, and there have been attempts to revive Gopher on modern platforms and mobile devices. One attempt is The Overbite Project, which hosts various browser extensions and modern clients.
Within any species, the males are larger than the females and can be nearly double their weight. Most gophers have brown fur that often closely matches the color of the soil in which they live. Their most characteristic features are their large cheek pouches, from which the word “pocket” in their name derives.
A Solitary Life
Gophers are active all year long and at any time of day. Despite having an extensive tunnel network, they aren't social animals among their own kind except during mating and weaning periods. They're very territorial and fight to protect their food and homes from intruders.
Researchers say such calls may help explain the evolution of a variety of species, including humans. One theory behind the screams is that the animals have a biological predisposition toward nepotism - in saving a relative's life, the gopher helps ensure the survival of its own gene pool. Dr.
Gophers reach sexual maturity at about 1 year of age and can live up to 3 years. In nonirrigated areas, breeding usually occurs in late winter and early spring, resulting in 1 litter per year; in irrigated sites, gophers can produce up to 3 litters per year. Litters usually average 5 to 6 young.
Do gophers sleep a lot?
Fossorial animals spend most of their life underground, especially during the day. Gophers have two sleep cycles during the day and are active for roughly 400 minutes or about seven hours each day.
Plants gophers won't eat: Gophers usually won't eat daffodils (Narcissus) and most allium, onion or garlic plants, so you're safe planting as many of those as you want.
Gophers hate loud or shrill sounds, as they have extremely sensitive ears. If you place a natural noisemaker to your yard, such as wind chimes or a radio, then gophers will naturally move away after a point. This is because the continuous noise will perpetually irritate their ears.
Carrot sticks, celery sticks, apples, and peanut butter are all highly attractive to gophers. The advantage of peanut butter is that it is easy to apply to the vertical bait pan of the snap type trap.
A gopher's stout body is built for digging. They have small ears and eyes, and no distinct neck. Their legs are short and powerful end, and their broad feet have large claws.
Coyotes, domestic dogs and cats, foxes, and bobcats capture gophers at their burrow entrances; badgers, long-tailed weasels, skunks, rattlesnakes, and gopher snakes corner gophers in their burrows. Owls and hawks capture gophers above ground.
Pocket gophers are capable of swimming. The southern pocket gopher has the greatest endurance of three species that were tested in laboratory conditions. The plains pocket gopher is intermediate in its endurance between the southern pocket gopher and the yellow-faced pocket gopher. The latter is a very poor swimmer.
As recorded in Genesis 6:14, Noah's ark was made from gopher wood; however, it is still unknown what wood species the gopher is although Woodmorappe (1996) has argued for teak.
The Hebrew Word for God: Elohim
The word for “God” in Hebrew is Elohim, which appears in the Biblical text quite often. However, it appears both as a common noun (divinity, ancestral spirit, ghost)[1], and as the proper noun – name for the one and only God.
Ark of the Covenant, Hebrew Aron Ha-berit, in Judaism and Christianity, the ornate, gold-plated wooden chest that in biblical times housed the two tablets of the Law given to Moses by God.
What kills gophers fast?
Poison gopher baits provide homeowners with an effective and easy way to get rid of gophers. Victor® Poison Peanut pellets, in particular, are formulated to be enticing to gophers. When consumed, the poison pellets work quickly to kill the gopher.
Garlic. Like other rodents, gophers dislike the smell and taste of garlic. Try planting some in your garden or mixing up a garlic solution that you can spray directly into mole tunnels.
Rodents such as mice, rats, gophers, moles, chipmunks, prairie dogs, and rabbits do not carry rabies. Squirrels rarely carry rabies.
Having the Gopher Birth Totem means you are loyal, generous, and upbeat. With Gopher as a Totem, you enjoy keeping your work-home-interests in balance. You often seem to have good luck, but it's more about your ability to recognize when to act and when to wait. Gopher people have firm boundaries and make them clear.
Moles and Gophers tend to keep to themselves and will not attack other animals unless threatened. Once threatened, they only try to get away from the animal and not become the aggressor. Both Moles and Gophers have long digging nails and sharp teeth that can give any animal puncture wounds.
Gophers dig extensive tunnel systems and are usually not seen on the surface. They are active year round and may burrow at any time of day. However, gophers are most active in the spring when they may construct up to three mounds a day. Additionally, they seem to be more active around dusk and at night.
As a vegetarian the gopher likes peanut butter, as well as your potatoes, carrots, roots, lawn, and plants – which makes peanut butter the perfect bait to trap and then kill gophers.
Mixing tabasco sauce, castor oil, peppermint oil, and water together can make a very potent mixture. This ingredient is a staple in many homes, and it can serve its purpose in getting rid of moles and gophers. This mixture can easily eliminate these nasty crawlers out of the gardens and backyards.
What attracts gophers in your yard? Like most animals (including humans), it's food. Gophers are herbivores, so their preferred food sources are lawns and gardens. Remove weeds — they're like appetizers for gophers — and add repellant plants like rosemary, lavender or salvia.
Gopher is an Internet application that allows you to browse many different kinds of resources by looking at menus or listings of information available. Its function is easy to remember because of its name: you use Gopher to "go fer" information that is on other computers all over the world.
What is gopher in Native American?
Gophers are considered to be messengers of the underworld by many western tribes, and are sometimes seen as a symbol of death.
Gophers are several species of burrowing rodents native to North America. A gofer is an employee who performs menial tasks and runs errands. Gofer is a new word, having arisen in the U.S. in the second half of the 20th century, and it derives from the phrase go for, as in go for coffee or go for lunch.
gopher-proxy is a tiny wai application running on top of warp. It acts as a gopher-over-http proxy for a specific server, e. g. to http-ify a gopher space.
If you notice several fan-shaped mounds in your yard, you might have a gopher infestation. As the gophers dig tunnels, they push dirt to the surface and out of their tunnels which creates a small mound on the surface each time they push dirt out of their tunnels.
This is because the pests rarely come above ground, and when they do, they prefer not to stray far from their burrow holes. In fact, gophers are so timid and easily frightened that they seldom interact with humans or any other animal.
Related resources for this article
The pocket gopher is a gnawing rodent related to the squirrel and the prairie dog. In some places chipmunks and other small rodents are mistakenly called gophers. The gopher spends most of its life underground. The gopher reaches about 18 inches (46 centimeters) in length.
Coyotes, domestic dogs and cats, foxes, and bobcats capture gophers at their burrow entrances; badgers, long-tailed weasels, skunks, rattlesnakes, and gopher snakes corner gophers in their burrows. Owls and hawks capture gophers above ground.
Because the Earth is their dwelling space, Native Americans consider Gophers as messengers from the underworld. Gopher Spirit might presage death, or come as a healer for sickness. Sometimes the creature appears as a wise advisor. Tribes having Gopher as a Clan Animal include the Hopi and Pueblo.