The natural history of the gerbil

Gerbils are one of the most popular pocket pets, but few people know more about them than their shiny eyes and long tails with the sweet little tuft at the end. These things are true, of course, but there is much more to the gerbil than its high adorability factor.

The gerbil subfamily includes a long list of other desert rodents, which are scattered across the African, Indian, and Asian continents. Gerbils as a class are hardy, social animals, which are well adapted to their hot dry climate. Our pet store gerbil is in fact only one kind of gerbil - the Clawed Jird of Mongolia, Meriones unguiculatus.

The first European sighting of the Clawed Jird was recorded by Armand David, a missionary and science teacher with a passion for natural history. In 1862 David was ordained as a missionary and sent to Peking. As part of his missionary work, he travelled all throughout Asia, while sending natural history dispatches back to Europe during his travels. David was the first European to describe the Clawed Jird. A year later, the Clawed Jird was formally introduced by a paper in a scientific publication, which described the Clawed Jird as "yellow rat."

In 1935, a Japanese scientist imported gerbils from Mongolia to his lab in Japan, for use in his research into rickets. The Clawed Jird was introduced to the United States in 1954 by Dr. Victor Schwentker, for use as research subjects. Schwentker imported a small colony of four pairs and raised them for research use. It was during this time that Schwentker discovered that the gerbils were both easy to breed and wonderfully suited to being pets. He began giving away his surplus gerbils as pets to friends and family members. Not long after this, they began appearing in pet shops, first locally, then nation wide.

Although gerbils are typically sold alongside hamsters at the pet store, they are actually very different animals. The gerbil is diurnal, and has developed several means of defense against daytime predators. It moves quickly, and can run and jump with great speed. Their natural habitat is the arid steppes of Mongolia, which is sandy and hot, with sparse vegetation.

In the wild, gerbils live in family colonies of about 20. Each colony establishes a territory between 1,000 and 5,000 square feet (30 to 70 feet on a side). The territory houses several burrows, some of which may be very deep, to escape from predators and to provide a cool place to rest in the course of the day. The colony will set up a main burrow, which is massive, and has several dozen exits.

As a desert animal, the gerbil is adept at storing water. (Gerbils still require constant access to fresh water, of course.) This means that they can be susceptible to bouts of diarrhea if they are given food with too high a water content, such as cucumber or tomato. Gerbils prefer crunchier, drier snacks such as dried pasta, and sunflower seeds.

The most significant difference between gerbils and hamsters is that the hamster is a solitary creature, while the gerbil is a social one. Gerbils are wildly unhappy when kept alone, and should be kept at least in pairs.

Ideally, gerbil owners should keep at least three gerbils together, in case something untoward happens to one of the gerbils. I once kept a pair of gerbils, and when one gerbil died unexpectedly, the remaining gerbil shut down completely for several days (he sat in a corner, not eating, drinking, or responding to my presence), until I was able to find him a new friend.