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Arabian Jird Meriones arimalius

A rodent found in Saudi Arabia, Oman, and UAE. It lives in sandy deserts, but little is known about it.

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#jird #rodent #mouse #mammal #animals #wildlife #desert #Rodentia #Muridae #Meriones

Bushy tailed jird baby is out exploring. Newest litter.

#personal #pet #bushy tailed jirds #exotic rodents #jird

can't believe that "jird" is a real word

Started doing some to-scale size references for Redwall-verse species, including some speculative ones (and corrected identifications, such as Jacques's few infamous instances of "crested lizards"... those are newts, buddy).

All the creatures in this series are obviously much less tiny or gigantic in proportion to each other than their real-life inspirations. Kinda got to do that to make a building useful for both small mice and massive badgers and otters!

This page is completely filled with speculative inclusions! In an effort to broaden the world of Redwall and to take into account what creatures appear (that don't really seem to have a real world species they belong to, like the tree-rats) and what creatures should have appeared, given they live in the same places as the mice and moles and weasels and badgers.

First, we have the third big member of the shrew and mole's family tree: The Desman. Desman are mole-like animals with high-placed nostrils, webbed toes, and strong swimming tails, as they are as aquatic as otters! Desman are not well-known among the Goodbeast culture, so they have an ambiguous class placement rather than counted as a fellow "Goodbeast" or degraded to "Vermin" status. Next, we have the Lemmings, also called Icevoles as that's sort of what they look like. The only Lemming tribe I've included in the background of my stuff behaves sort of like the worst among Viking stereotypes, but regardless Lemmings/Icevoles are more broadly considered "Goodbeast", likely because they are thought so vole-like. They we have the Northern Birch Mouse or Tree Mouse. Yes, that's right. Mouse. Known among the cultures of Redwall as Tree Rats, likely only considered rats in a social sense, as the species is firmly classed "Vermin". Similarly are the nebulous "small rat-like rodents" that appeared in Legend of Luke, which I have interpreted as a species something like the Cretan Spiny Mouse. Yep, a technical "mouse" again, classed as Vermin and considered to be a rat despite not really being a rat (but being considered an antagonist while in the myurid family... enh, that's really all the word "rat" means in both the real world and Redwall).

Next we have the Jerboa, and despite not being a rat at all gets called the "jerbilrat" in the series due to being considered Vermin. I thought that possibly implied that, if the Jerboa is a "jerbil-rat", aka "gerbil-like rat", then the Redwall-verse might consider Gerbils (and their relations the Jirds) to belong to the Goodbeast class, leaving Jerboa as the one gerbil-ish animal that is distinguished in this way. And finally, the mole-rat. Given their accurate "rat" moniker, these blind and generally very inoffensive rodents would regardless get slapped with an ole "Vermin" label, probably scorned as some cheap mimicry of moles in much the same way the squirrels in the series openly despite the tree-rats. Poor mole-rats! These are even the cuter, fuzzier species--and were I to imagine a culture of mole-rats in my stuff they'd be pretty chill critters and rather non-violent, just treated as "creepy" and "scary" rat mutants by the less chill among the "Goodbeast" characters. You know the ones--the ones who need a big kick in the tailbone by somebeast with more sense (though they rarely ever get it!)

Arabian jird (Meriones arimalius)

Originally identified as Libyan Jird, Meriones libyicus, the specimens from the UAE have now been named as a separate species, the Arabian Jird or Meriones arimalius. The tail of M. arimalius differs from M. crassus by being rougher and less covered with hair. Soles of the feet are naked. Not much is yet known about the behaviour of this species although from areas where they occur it seems that they live in loose colonies existing over a few burrow mounds. Gestation is not known but is probably similar to M. crassus, being approximately 24 days.

Classification Animalia - Chordata - Mammalia - Eutheria - Boreoeutheria - Euarchontoglires - Glires - Rodentia - Myomorpha - Myodonta - Muroidea - Muridae - Gerbillinae - Gerbillina - Meriones - Pallasiomys - M. arimalius

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