Appearance
Gophers are heavily built, and most are 12 to 30 cm (4.7 to 12 in) long, weighing a few hundred grams. A few species reach weights approaching 1 kg (2.2 lb). 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. These pouches are fur-lined, and can be turned inside out. They extend from the side of the mouth well back onto the shoulders. They have small eyes and a short, hairy tail, which they use to feel around tunnels when they walk backwards.
Read more about this topic: Pocket Gopher
Famous quotes containing the word appearance:
“The fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“The actor is too prone to exaggerate his powers; he wants to play Hamlet when his appearance is more suitable to King Lear.”
—Sarah Bernhardt (1845–1923)
“The aim of science is to apprehend this purely intelligible world as a thing in itself, an object which is what it is independently of all thinking, and thus antithetical to the sensible world.... The world of thought is the universal, the timeless and spaceless, the absolutely necessary, whereas the world of sense is the contingent, the changing and moving appearance which somehow indicates or symbolizes it.”
—R.G. (Robin George)