Donna Anastasi - Gerbils: The Complete Guide to Gerbil Care

This pair of nutmeg gerbils loves to explore a natural habitat.

C OMPANION ANIMALS COME IN ALL SIZES AND OFFER many benefits: they bring us joy, reduce stress, build confidence, and teach responsibility. Pets have various needs as well, and it may not always be feasible to keep a pony, a dog, or even a cat. Gerbils, however, are pets almost anyone can keep. They are fun-loving, furry friends with endless energy and a talent for making people smile. They are also quiet, clean, friendly, curious, active, and easy to please. Gerbils have a natural liking for people and are especially fond of their own. If you are looking for a seemingly limitless cache of cutenessfrom their long, fanning whiskers and large almond-shaped eyes to their bunnylike hind legs and tufted tail tipsthen gerbils are for you!

Just the Facts

Gerbils are mammals (Mammalia) under the order of rodents (Rodentia). They are in the same suborder as mice and rats (Myomorpha) and the same family as hamsters (Cricetidae). They are sometimes confused with mice, hamsters, or rats, but if you look closely, youll notice several physical differences. A gerbil is bigger than a mouse, smaller than a rat, and about the size of an adolescent or small hamster. Unlike a hamster, the gerbil has a long tail; and unlike a rat or mouse tail, the gerbils tail is fully furred with a thick tuft at the end. When not in motion, gerbils typically stand up on their haunches, rather than crouch down on all fours.

Pet gerbils come in more than 20 recognized color varieties, including the Dove, Lilac, Argente, and spotted Argente varieties shown here.

Gerbils have a life span of about three and a half years. They have a 4-1/2-inch-long body with a tail the same length. An adult female weighs as little as 2-1/2 ounces. An adult male, especially one that overindulges in sunflower seeds, can weigh as much as 4 ounces. Gerbils have a 1-1/2-inch midline scent gland, a vertical slit running up their bellies, which they use to recognize each other and also to scent-mark their territory. (The smell is imperceptible to us.)

Though gerbils have an appearance similar to that of other pet rodents, their wild origins, behavior, and history as pets are all their own.

Wild Origins: Home on the Mongolian Range

The Mongolian gerbil is the gerbil species commonly kept as a pet in the United States. Mongolian gerbils are a type of jird (sometimes called sand rats, desert rats, yellow rats, antelope rats, or clawed jirds). Though less common, other related species kept as pets are the bushy-tailed jird, Egyptian gerbil, duprasi (fat-tailed gerbil), and Libyan jird.

Mongolian gerbils originated in northern China and, not surprisingly, Mongolia. Though dubbed gentle gerbil by the researchers who work with them, their Latin name is Meriones unguiculatus, or clawed warrior, because, they are fiercely protective of home and family against gerbil strangers and other threats. (The teeth are the primary weapon in occasional battle; the claws are mainly for digging.) A typical family clan consists of an adult male and an adult female with up to three litters.

The Mongolian plain has temperature extremes: it can be a frigid 40 degrees below zero in the dead of a winters night and can bake in a scorching high of up to 120 degrees in the noontime midsummer sun. Gerbils are perfectly suited to their harsh semi-desert grassland environment because they conserve heat with a compact body, furred tail with a tuft at the end, and small ears that are covered with thick, fine fur. In the wild, they retreat into their burrows to nap when it gets cold or hot, thus avoiding excessive temperatures.

Gerbils have many defense mechanisms. They have large internal middle and inner ear parts to hear low-frequency sounds such as those made by a predatory snake in the grass or an eagle owl hunting overhead. They also live in large groups where many watchful eyes check for danger; thumping feet signal clan members to dive for cover. In addition, gerbils can leap several inches off the ground or dodge sideways to avoid a creeping predator. But, when captured, if biting and clawing arent enough, a gerbil can escape the clutches of an owls talons by leaving behind only a piece of the tail, which is built to detach in the middle. As a final defense, wild gerbils have naturally occurring seizures, which enable them to twitch and then freeze (or play dead) under conditions of extreme stress.

Gerbils have muscular hind legs and large feet that are used not only for escaping from predators but also for digging burrows. They use their claws and strong, short front legs to loosen the dirt and then kick it out of the tunnel with their powerful hind legs. The wild gerbils burrow is 12 feet or more across and is composed of nesting rooms lined with leaves, fur, and feathers for sleeping and birthing pups; storage rooms for holding food; and other chambersall connected by tunnels. The burrow has several entrances, and the youngsters and most females usually do not venture too far from the escape routes.

Male gerbils claim the territory around the burrow (from one-quarter to one full square mile) by scent-marking the borders and chasing away intruders. In the summer, gerbils run great distances above ground every day, gathering and storing food. They sleep in small nest chambers located about 18 inches underground. In the winter, to keep warm, gerbils snooze in deeper nests, sometimes as much as 5 feet underground. They stay inside the burrow, eating seeds, grains, and other stored food for extended periods of time to escape the wind and cold.

The color of Mongolian gerbils in the wild is called Agouti (ah-GOO-tee), also called wild Agouti or golden Agouti, and is similar to a wild rabbits coloration. The fur on the body is brown and gold, with black ticking or hair tips. The belly color is white or light gray. In addition to Agouti, pet gerbils come in a variety of colors. Unlike rats, rabbits, mice, and hamsters, domestic gerbils have no special coat types (there are, for example, no rex, long hair, or hairless gerbils), body mutations (there are no tailless, lop, or dumbo-eared types), nor variation in size (there are no dwarf or giant sizes). Except for color, pet gerbils retain the appearance, as well as the good health and hardiness, of their ancestors found in the wild.

A curious agouti gerbil uses large eyes, long full whiskers, and excellent hearing to explore.

This male gerbil scent marks by dragging his belly and scent gland on the ground leaving an oily residue to claim his territory as his own.

History as Pets: The New Rodent on the Block

Of the magnificent sevengerbils, hamsters, mice, rats, rabbits, ferrets, and guinea pigsgerbils are the newest species to be introduced into the United States and to gain popularity as pets. In 1935, twenty breeding pairs of Mongolian gerbils were captured and imported into Japan where they were successfully bred in captivity. In 1954, this line of gerbils was exported to the United States for research: gerbils first arrived here, not as pets, but as laboratory animals.