[1] The Michoacan pocket gopher is a small animal with short, dense, black, lustrous fur and a hairless tail.

[4] The Michoacan pocket gopher is endemic to the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt mountain range in central southern Mexico, where it occurs in four discrete locations near west of Lake Pátzcuaro at altitudes over 2,200 metres (7,200 ft).

[1][3] The fossil record shows that members of the genus Zygogeomys, including two other now extinct species, were widespread in the late Pliocene epoch in the southwestern United States.

Its typical habitat is mixed forests of spruce, pine, and alder with deep friable soil suitable for burrowing.

[3] The Michoacan pocket gopher lives in a burrow and throws up a characteristic, cone-shaped mound of soil on the surface with no visible entrance.