Geomys breviceps Baird 1855

Geomys breviceps Baird 1855, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 7: 335.

Type Locality: USA, Louisiana, Morehouse Parish, Mer Rouge.

Vernacular Names: Baird's Pocket Gopher.

Subspecies::

Subspecies Geomys breviceps subsp. breviceps Baird 1855

Subspecies Geomys breviceps subsp. sagittalis Merriam 1895

Distribution: W Louisiana, E Texas, E Oklahoma, and SW Arkansas (USA).

Discussion: Reviewed by Sulentich et al. (1991, Mammalian Species No. 383). Considered a subspecies of bursarius by Hall (1981) and Patton (1993). Contact zones between breviceps and bursarius studied by Bohlin and Zimmerman (1982) and Zimmerman and Gayden (1981) and between breviceps and attwateri by Tucker and Schmidly (1981), Dowler (1989), and Burt and Dowler (1999). Jolley et al. (2000) examined the phylogenetic position of breviceps relative to other species of Geomys . Two subspecies recognized (Sulentich et al., 1991), but sagittalis may be a distinct species based on mitochondrial DNA variation (Demastes, 1994).