What’s the Difference Between Gophers and Groundhogs?

Gophers and groundhogs are both deceptively cuddly woodland rodents that scurry through underground tunnels and chow down on plants. But whether you’re a nature nerd, a Golden Gophers football fan, or planning an early February trip to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, you might want to know the difference between groundhogs and gophers.

Despite their similar appearances and burrowing habits, groundhogs and gophers don’t have a whole lot in common—they don’t even belong to the same family. For example, gophers belong to the family Geomyidae, a group that includes pocket gophers (sometimes referred to as “true” gophers), kangaroo rats, and pocket mice.

Groundhogs, meanwhile, are members of the family Sciuridae (meaning “shadow-tail”) and belong to the genus Marmota. Marmots are diurnal ground squirrels, Daniel Blumstein, a UCLA biologist and marmot expert, told Mental Floss in 2017. “There are 15 species of marmot, and groundhogs are one of them,” he said.

Science aside, there are plenty of other visible differences between the two animals. Gophers, for example, have hairless tails, protruding yellow or brownish teeth, and fur-lined cheek pockets for storing food—all traits that make them different from groundhogs. The feet of gophers are often pink, while groundhogs have brown or black feet. And while the tiny gopher tends to weigh around two or so pounds, groundhogs can grow to around 13 pounds.

While both types of rodent eat mostly vegetation, gophers prefer roots and tubers (much to the dismay of gardeners trying to plant new specimens), while groundhogs like vegetation and fruits. This means that the former animals rarely emerge from their burrows, while the latter are more commonly seen out and about.

Groundhogs “have burrows underground they use for safety, and they hibernate in their burrows,” Blumstein said. “They’re active during the day above ground, eating a variety of plants and running back to their burrows to safety. If it’s too hot, they’ll go back into their burrow. If the weather gets crappy, they’ll go back into their burrow during the day as well.”

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that gophers are the more reclusive of the two, as groundhogs famously hibernate during the winter. Gophers, on the other hand, remain active—and wreck lawns—year-round.

“What’s really interesting is if you go to a place where there’s gophers, in the spring, what you’ll see are what is called eskers,” or winding mounds of soil, Blumstein said [PDF]. “Basically, they dig all winter long through the earth, but then they tunnel through snow, and they leave dirt in these snow tunnels.”

If all this rodent talk has you now thinking about other woodland creatures, know that groundhogs have plenty of nicknames, including “whistle-pig” and “woodchuck,” while the only nicknames for gophers appear to be bitter monikers coined by Wisconsin Badgers fans.

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A version of this story ran in 2017; it has been updated for 2023.