Climbing abilities in four species of desert rodents

Abstract

The potential locomotor performances of four Saharan species of rodents were tested in laboratory conditions, using three experimental situations. Two questions were investigated: Is each of these species able to use the vertical dimension when it is available? Does each of these species behave efficiently in a new environment? We tested the performances of Acomys cahirinus (Desmarest 1819) and Gerbillus campestris (Le Vaillant 1867) that are found in rocky environments in the wild and of Gerbillus pyramidum (I. Geoffroy 1825) and Meriones shaivi (Rozet 1833), that are found in sandy environments. Climbing performance of the species was tested on a horizontal platform, a thread and a tree-branch. From our data, we concluded that Acomys and G. campestris showed an efficient behaviour in these three tasks. M. shawi and to a lesser extent G. pyramidum were unable to behave efficiently in the test situations.