Gerbil

Overview

The Mongolian gerbil comes from the steppe and semi-desert of Mongolia and northern China, and it is built to lose as little water as possible: it concentrates its urine heavily, produces almost no odor, and can go a remarkably long time on the moisture in its food. That desert economy is why gerbils are among the cleanest small pets to keep. They are obsessive burrowers, and a gerbil given deep enough bedding will build and maintain a tunnel system rather than sit on top of it. They are strictly social and should never be kept alone, but introductions between adults frequently fail, which is the single hardest part of keeping them.

Quick Facts

History

Alphonse Milne-Edwards named the species Gerbillus unguiculatus in 1867, working from specimens that Father Armand David had sent to Paris from northern China the year before. The captive population rests on a much narrower base: 20 pairs of wild-caught gerbils went to Japan in 1935, and 11 of their descendants reached Victor Schwentker's Tumblebrook Farm in Brant Lake, New York, in 1954. Schwentker had imported them as research animals and then noticed how well they took to a cage. They were selling as pets across the United States by the late 1950s and arrived in Britain in 1964.