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Mongolian Gerbil — printable fact sheet
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Mongolian Gerbil
Meriones unguiculatus
Meriones unguiculatus is a desert-adapted rodent from the steppes of Mongolia, northern China and adjacent Russia, and its physiology is built around never drinking. It extracts almost all the water it needs from seeds and vegetation, and its kidneys produce urine so concentrate…
Did you know?
- Despite being called 'desert rats' in some regions, Mongolian gerbils are not true rats and belong to a distinct subfamily of rodents.
- Gerbils dig compulsively, and a gerbil in a bare tank will corner-dig for hours; given deep bedding they excavate real tunnel systems with multiple entrances and a nest chamber. In the wild they are diurnal-crepuscular and hoard large seed caches to survive Mongolian winters, when temperatures fall below minus 30 C. Their foot-drumming has distinct patterns for alarm and for mating, and a whole colony will take up the drumming when one animal starts.
What I learned
Draw the mongolian gerbil
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