The critters resemble the gopher from Caddyshack… if it had rabies.
Inside ‘Zombeavers’: The Gross-Out Tribeca Flick About Killer Zombie Beavers Hunting Sexy Coeds|Marlow Stern|April 24, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
The Story of Noah's Ark From the Bible’s Book of Genesis|The Daily Beast|March 24, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Though she was bent almost double, she was as spry as a gopher.
O Pioneers!|Willa Cather
He tossed over to her thirty prints of Gopher Prairie and the country about.
Main Street|Sinclair Lewis
Neither is there any mistaking the flavor of gopher extract.
Lorimer of the Northwest|Harold Bindloss
Gopher had dined all on board but the crew, who had turned in before I did.
Up the River|Oliver Optic
Saw a Gopher throwing out the dirt with his fore feet and not from his pouches.
Audubon and his Journals, Volume I (of 2)|Maria R. Audubon
British Dictionary definitions for gopher
gopher
/ (ˈɡəʊfə) /
noun
Also called: pocket gopherany burrowing rodent of the family Geomyidae, of North and Central America, having a thickset body, short legs, and cheek pouches
another name for ground squirrel
any burrowing tortoise of the genus Gopherus, of SE North America
gopher snake another name for bull snake
Word Origin for gopher
C19: shortened from earlier megopher or magopher, of obscure origin