Dune hairy-footed gerbil

The dune hairy-footed gerbil, also called the Namib dune gerbil (Gerbillurus tytonis), is a rodent found only in western Namibia, in the desert strip near the coast between Swakopmund and Luderitz. It lives in loose sand among high or low dunes and in dune hummocks, and it avoids hard, compact dune valley floors. The animal has a head-and-body length of about 99 mm, a very long tail tipped with grey hairs, a rich chestnut back sharply set off from white underparts, a small white patch above each eye, and long flared toes fringed with hairs on well-furred soles. It is nocturnal and moves by leaping, covering up to 41 cm in one jump. By day it stays in a burrow up to a metre long, often dug beside the roots of desert plants such as Stipagrostis sabulicola or nara, with food caches and a nest of shredded plant matter. It eats arthropods, seeds and green vegetation, needs no drinking water when its food is rich in arthropods, and is assessed as least concern.