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Gerbillinae
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Gerbillinae is one of the subfamilies of the rodent family Muridae and includes the gerbils, jirds, and sand rats. Once known as desert rats, the subfamily includes about 110 species of African, Indian, and Asian rodents, including sand rats and jirds, all of which are adapted to arid habitats. Most are primarily active during the day, making them diurnal (but some species, including the common household pet, exhibit crepuscular behavior), and almost all are omnivorous.
OverviewAI-generated
Gerbillinae is a taxon classified within the family Muridae. It is documented in the iDigBio database, which holds a single record for this group associated with the institution ACUNHC. The subject is also represented in the Wikimedia Commons under the category "Gerbillinae."
The name Gerbillinae appears in 10,874 PubMed records. Additionally, the taxon is referenced by 610 other encyclopedia articles.
Synthesized by Vinony from 10 facts across 4 sources: Wikidata, PubMed, iDigBio, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Research
10,874 papers- Comparative Mitogenome Analysis of Gerbils and the Mitogenome Phylogeny of Gerbillinae (Rodentia: Muridae).Biochemical genetics · 2022
- The complete mitochondrial genome of the Mongolian gerbil, Meriones unguiculatus (Rodentia: Muridae: Gerbillinae).Mitochondrial DNA. Part A, DNA mapping, sequencing, and analysis · 2016
- New data on the catenotaeniid cestode Gerbillitaenia psammomi (Mikhail and Fahmy, 1968) parasitizing Fat sand rats, Psammomys obesus (Muridae: Gerbillinae), in Tunisia.Journal of helminthology · 2025
- Molecular evidence that the spiny mouse (Acomys) is more closely related to gerbils (Gerbillinae) than to true mice (Murinae).Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 1993
- Molecular phylogenetics of the genus Gerbillus (Rodentia, Gerbillinae): Implications for systematics, taxonomy and chromosomal evolution.Molecular phylogenetics and evolution · 2010
via PubMed
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Encyclopedic overview
4 sectionsContents
- Classification
- References
- Citations
- Resources
Gerbillinae is one of the subfamilies of the rodent family Muridae and includes the gerbils, jirds, and sand rats. Once known as desert rats, the subfamily includes about 110 species of African, Indian, and Asian rodents, including sand rats and jirds, all of which are adapted to arid habitats. Most are primarily active during the day, making them diurnal (but some species, including the common household pet, exhibit crepuscular behavior), and almost all are omnivorous.
The gerbil got its name as a diminutive form of "jerboa", an unrelated group of rodents occupying a similar ecological niche. Gerbils are typically between long, including the tail, which makes up about half of their total length. One species, the great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus), originally native to Turkmenistan, can grow to more than . The average adult gerbil weighs about .
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Gerbillinae” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.