Illustration of a Pocket Gopher - Historical Engraving from 19th-Century Natural History #3616898 (License: Personal Use)

This finely detailed wood engraving illustrates a pocket gopher (family Geomyidae), notable for its large incisors, robust forelimbs, and dense fur-adaptations for a fossorial lifestyle. The artist used cross-hatching to render texture and depth, capturing the animal’s alert posture and sensory features like long vibrissae. Such illustrations were common in 19th-century zoological texts before photographic documentation became widespread.

Used in educational articles, museum digital archives, or historical biology resources to demonstrate pre-photographic scientific illustration methods; targets users researching rodent morphology, natural history art, or evolutionary adaptations.