Jerboas (Jaculus jaculus) in the Research of Digestive Behaviors Webinar

Registration is FREE! 

Please register by 5/10/22. 

Presentation will be worth 1 AALAS CEU (RACE approval pending)

See the following description on this compelling webinar: 

Jerboas are hopping desert rodents found throughout North Africa and Asia, and are

members of the family Dipodidae. These unique animals have long hind feet and a long

tail. Most importantly for us, they don’t drink but eat vegetables instead to obtain water.

They are thus a challenge to researchers and animal care staff, but can prove to be a

perfect desert animal model for investigating evolutional adaptation of ingestive

behaviors. In this webinar, we will provide an introduction to the specific husbandry and

veterinary care of jerboas in the laboratory. Particularly, we would like to highlight some

distinguishing ingestive features of these organisms. Jerboas show high resistance to

dehydration, and don’t tend to develop “water addiction” after learning of drinking.

Compared to lab mice, they show a substantially high demand towards vegetables.

Lastly, we will discuss how we established a colony of Jaculus jaculus at Caltech.