Gerbillinae
Sign in to saveGerbillinae 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.
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Gerbillinae is a subfamily of rodents that includes gerbils, jirds, and sand rats—about 110 species native to Africa, India, and Asia that are specially adapted to live in dry desert environments. These animals matter because they're commonly kept as pets and studied by scientists, and they show interesting adaptations to arid climates, including being primarily active during the day and eating a varied omnivorous diet.
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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
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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.
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 .