Desert pocket mouse

Desert pocket mouse
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Rodentia
Family:	Heteromyidae
Genus:	Chaetodipus
Species:	C. penicillatus
Binomial name
Chaetodipus penicillatus (Woodhouse, 1852)

The desert pocket mouse (Chaetodipus penicillatus) is a North American species of heteromyid rodent found in the southwestern United States and Mexico.^[2] True to its common name, the desert pocket mouse prefers sandy, sparsely vegetated desert. Its primary diet is seeds, making it a granivore. Like other pocket mice, the desert pocket mouse has fur-lined cheek pouches on the outside of its mouth, which it uses to gather the seeds it finds. It also stores seeds in the underground burrows where it lives. They have been known to eat mainly mesquite seeds and palo verde seeds. They have two large teeth on each jaw located in the front of the mouth called incisors. They will use these to break through hard soil digging for seeds. Desert pocket mice are nocturnal, and some of them hibernate in burrows during the winter. They are very small, about the size of a grown man's thumb.

The mouse's breeding season is in the spring; adult females can give birth to one or more litters of two to five young during the spring and summer. Gestation lasts on average of 23 days. Incisors appear 9 days after birth, eyes open on day 14, and ears open no sooner than day 14. Population has a high turnover rate as high as 95%.

References

1. ^ Linzey, A.V., Timm, R., Álvarez-Castañeda, S.T., Castro-Arellano, I. & Lacher, T. (2008). Chaetodipus penicillatus. In: IUCN 2008. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 18 January 2009. Database entry includes a brief justification of why this species is of least concern
2. ^ Patton, James L. (16 November 2005). "Family Heteromyidae (pp. 844-858)". In Wilson, Don E., and Reeder, DeeAnn M., eds. Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 vols. (2142 pp.). p. 855. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494. http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3/browse.asp?id=12700267.