So, by setting up a really small tank with hardly anything in it – you are making a really simple home – one home on each side with food and water only. I mean – how can they both scent mark everything all the time if their home is really big – and if they can’t both be in there all the time? The answer is: You need to bring the habitat under control. Obviously you can’t have them both safely living in a giant tank filled with bedding and tunnels and shelves and houses and nests and shelves and bowls and bottles and hope that they don’t meet – so you have to take out the risk. So how can you ever get two gerbils to think they both live in the same home at the same time? Obviously, this isn’t very useful for making friends. They will actively defend their home against any intruders. Gerbils spend a great deal of time making sure that their home is exactly how they want it and that it all smells of them and that means they own it. The reason you need a Split Tank to introduce two gerbils together over any other set-up is that they are designed to mix gerbil scents. Hopefully the context will help explain which way around this is. Splitting UP gerbils or ‘they need to be split up’ and ‘split them up now!’ still means take these two gerbils apart and put into completely separate tanks. You may hear the word ‘ splitting together two gerbil’ and ‘ they need to be split’ – but it means: put in a split tank and bonded together to be friends. I know the verb ‘ to split’ seems counterproductive when we are wanting to put them together – but it is the name used to describe the special tank set-up – basically it is split into 2 sides. Whether these gerbils are complete strangers or are relatives or friends who knew each other a while back but have been apart – you will need ‘to split’ them together. Gerbils do NOT react well to meeting face-to-face with a stranger. It is present in some protected areas and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as being of " least concern".A Split Tank or Split Cage is a specially made small habitat used to safely introduce gerbils to each other over a period of time. It is presumed to have a large total population and no specific threats have been identified. This species is common in its dune habitat. It maintains the condition of its coat by frequent sand-bathing. This gerbil concentrates its urine, and has no need to drink as long as its food is rich in arthropods and does not entirely consist of dry seeds. The gerbil's diet includes arthropods and seeds, and green vegetation when available. Inside the burrow there are caches of food and a nest chamber filled with shredded plant matter. This may be branched, have more than one entrance, and be up to 1 m (40 in) long. It keeps cool by day by remaining underground in its burrow. The dune hairy-footed gerbil is nocturnal and moves by leaping, being able to cover up to 41 cm (16 in) in a single jump. The burrow is often dug beside Trianthema hereroensis or Stipagrostis sabulicola plants, whose roots stabilise the soil, or in the hummocks of spiny growth formed by Acanthosicyos horridus (nara) plants. It favours habitats with shifting sand and some plant life, avoiding hard compact dune valley floors. Its range consists of an area near the coast between Swakopmund and Lüderitz. This gerbil is endemic to the deserts of western Namibia, where it occurs in areas with high or low sand dunes, and in dune hummocks. Distribution and habitat ĭune hairy-footed gerbil burrows are often concealed under Acanthosicyos horridus plants The tail is very long, being chestnut above and white below, and tipped with a tuft of greyish hairs. All the feet have well-furred soles and a distinctive fringe of hairs on each toe. There are five toes on each foot, with the toes of the hind feet being long and flared. The legs are white, the forelegs being much shorter than the hind legs. There is a small white patch above each eye. The upper parts of the head and body are a rich chestnut, sharply delineated from the underparts, which are white. The head is narrow with a pointed muzzle, large eyes, and long, sparsely-haired ears. The dune hairy-footed gerbil is a moderate-sized Gerbillurus species with a head-and-body length of 99 mm (3.9 in) and a long tail. Its natural habitat is temperate desert where it lives in loose sand among sand dunes, feeding opportunistically on arthropods, seeds and green vegetation. The dune hairy-footed gerbil, or the Namib dune gerbil ( Gerbillurus tytonis) is a species of rodent found only in Namibia.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |