Zygomatic arches are widely flared, providing ample room for muscle attachment,[5] although, unlike other pocket gophers, this species does not use the curved incisors to assist the feet in digging.

[3] Plains pocket gophers prefer deep, sandy, friable soils to facilitate their burrowing lifestyle and their herbivorous diet of plant roots.

The local vegetation is less significant than the nature of the soil, and the gophers are found in prairie grasslands, agricultural land, and even urban areas.

[3] The gophers share their tunnels with numerous species of insects, including flies, scarab[10] and carrion beetles,[11] and cave crickets.

[12] Known predators include rattlesnakes, prairie kingsnakes, gopher snakes, feral cats, coyotes, foxes, badgers, hawks, and owls.

[7] For a fossorial animal with a metabolically expensive lifestyle (360–3400 times as much as terrestrial creatures), planning daily activity around burrow temperature, where lack of air flow and high humidity lead to a decrease in evaporative and convective cooling, is likely to be important.

Territorial and aggressive, especially in male-to-male interaction, these rodents appear to use their greatly increased sensitivity to soil vibration to maintain their solitary lifestyle.

[3] Due to the widespread distribution of this species, its adaptability to suitable habitat, the lack of any major threats, and an apparently stable population, G. bursarius has a conservation status of Least Concern.