Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Cten­odacty­lus gundi, the North African gundi, can be found in South­east­ern Mo­rocco, North­ern Al­ge­ria, Tunisia and Libya (Mac­don­ald, 1984; Walker, 1975).

• Biogeographic Regions
• ethiopian
  • native

Habi­tat

The North African gundi is found in deserts with arid rock out­crops. Its habi­tat may also in­clude a rocky slope on a hill or moun­tain (Mac­don­ald, 1984; Walker, 1975).

• Terrestrial Biomes
• desert or dune

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

The North African gundi ranges in size from 16-20cm for its head body length. It has a tiny tail, a mere whisp of hairs that is about 10 to 20mm long.

Gundis have very short legs, flat ears, big eyes, and long whiskers. It has been said that when seen crouched on a rock in the sun with the wind blow­ing through their fur, they look like pow­der puffs (Mac­don­ald, 1984). They have com­pact bod­ies, re­sem­bling guinea pigs in ex­ter­nal ap­pear­ance. Each of their feet has four dig­its, the two inner dig­its of the hind foot have comb­like bris­tles that stand out against their dark claws. The claws are not en­larged but are very sharp (Walker, 1975).

The skull of the North African gundi is broad pos­te­ri­orly. It has a straight palate. The cheek teeth are root­less (ever grow­ing) and they have the fol­low­ing den­tal for­mula: 1/1 0/0 1-2/1-2/ 3/3 X2= 20 or 24 (Walker, 1975).

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Range mass

  175 to 195 g

  6.17 to 6.87 oz

Re­pro­duc­tion

Fe­male gundis have a ges­ta­tion pe­riod of forty days. The mother has four nip­ples, two on her flanks and two on her chest. She usu­ally has a lit­ter size of two. The ba­bies are born fully furred and with their eyes open. The young have few op­por­tu­ni­ties to suckle as they are weaned on chewed leaves start­ing with their mother's first for­ag­ing ex­pe­di­tion after birth. They are fully weaned after four weeks. Wean­ing prob­a­bly oc­curs so soon after birth be­cause the mother has lit­tle milk to spare in the dry heat of the desert (Mac­don­ald, 1984).

• Key Reproductive Features
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual

• Average number of offspring

  1.9

  AnAge

• Average gestation period

  74 days

  AnAge

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
  Sex: female

  319 days

  AnAge

Lifes­pan/Longevity

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  5.8 years

  AnAge

Be­hav­ior

Gundis are gre­gar­i­ous. They live in colonies vary­ing in den­sity de­pend­ing on the food sup­ply and the ter­rain. Within colonies fam­ily ter­ri­to­ries are oc­cu­pied by a male, fe­male, and ju­ve­nile or by sev­eral fe­males and off­spring. Gundis make their homes in the shel­ter of rock out­crop­pings. These are usu­ally tem­po­rary. Char­ac­ter­is­ti­cally, a shel­ter re­tains the day's heat through a cold night and stays cool dur­ing a hot day. In the win­ter, gundis pile on top of each other to stay warm. The ju­ve­niles are pro­tected from the crush by their moth­ers or are wrapped in the soft fur at the back of her neck (Mac­don­ald, 1984).

Long dis­tance for­ag­ing gen­er­ates body heat, which can be dan­ger­ous on a hot desert day. There­fore, gundis dis­play be­hav­ior char­ac­ter­is­tics much re­sem­bling those of lizards. They sun­bathe in the early morn­ing until the tem­per­a­ture rises above 20 °C (68°F) and then begin for­ag­ing. After a quick feed, they flat­ten them­selves again on the warm rocks. Thus they make use of the sun to keep their bod­ies warm and to speed di­ges­tion. By the time the tem­per­a­ture reaches 32°C (90°F), the gundis have taken shel­ter in the shade of the rocks and do not come out again until the tem­per­a­ture drops in the af­ter­noon (Mac­don­ald, 1984).

Gundis com­mu­ni­cate by mak­ing a chirp­ing sound. In the dry desert air and the rocky ter­rain their low-pitched alert calls carry well. They also thump with their hind feet when alarmed. After hear­ing a warn­ing, gundis scurry under the rocks and out of harm's way. In fact, gundis are able to flat­ten their ribs in order to squeeze into a crack in the rocks (Mac­don­ald, 1984; Walker, 1975).

On slop­ing sur­faces, the North African gundi presses its body against the wall and uses the slight­est ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the ob­struc­tion to as­cend al­most per­pen­dic­u­larly (Walker, 1975).

An­other com­mon char­ac­ter­is­tic of gundis is that they rapidly scratch their rump in a cir­cu­lar mo­tion with the combed in­step on their feet (Mac­don­ald, 1984).

• Key Behaviors
• motile

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

• Perception Channels
• tactile
• chemical

Food Habits

The diet of C. gundi con­sists of a va­ri­ety of veg­e­ta­tion. Leaves, stalks, flow­ers, and the seeds of al­most any desert plant (in­clud­ing grass and aca­cia) are used as sus­te­nance (Mac­don­ald, 1984).

Typ­i­cally, gundis for­age over long dis­tances due to the scarcity of food avail­able in their desert habi­tats. They may for­age up to 1 kilo­me­ter (.6 mi) per morn­ing. Their home range size varies from a few square me­ters to 3 square kilo­me­ters (1.9 sq mi) (Mac­don­ald, 1984).

Reg­u­lar for­ag­ing is es­sen­tial be­cause gundis do not store food. When long for­ag­ing ex­pe­di­tions are nec­es­sary gundis al­ter­nate feed­ing in the sun and cool­ing off in the shade. In ex­treme drought gundis eat at dawn when plants con­tain the most mois­ture.

In­ter­est­ingly, gundis do not drink. They get most of their water in­take from the plants they eat (Mac­don­ald, 1984; Walker, 1975). Their kid­neys have long tubules for ab­sorb­ing water and their urine can be con­cen­trated if plants dry out com­pletely. How­ever, this is an emer­gency re­sponse and can only be sus­tained for a lim­ited time pe­riod (Mac­don­ald, 1984).

An­other in­ter­est­ing fact about their for­ag­ing for­ag­ing is that while most ro­dents are good gnaw­ers, gundis are not be­cause they lack the hard or­ange enamel on the outer sur­faces of their in­cisors (Mac­don­ald, 1984).

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

In the mid-19th cen­tury the ex­plorer John Speke shot gundis in the coastal hills of So­ma­lia. It is not known if this was done for sport or for food, but po­ten­tially gundis could be used as both (Mac­don­ald, 1984).

It is known that some Ara­bian tribes hunt gundis for food dur­ing the twi­light hours (Walker, 1975).

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

North African gundis could po­ten­tially be de­struc­tive to crops, gar­dens and such where their ranges over­lap with human habi­ta­tion.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

This species is not on the en­dan­gered species list.

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

Other Com­ments

In 1908, two French doc­tors iso­lated a pro­to­zoan par­a­site now known to occur in al­most every mam­mal, in the spleen of a North African gundi. They called it Tox­o­plasma gondii (Mac­don­ald, 1984).

Twi­light, in the com­mon speech of the Ara­bi­ans whom in­habit this re­gion, is called "the hour when the gundi comes out" (Walker, 1975).

Con­trib­u­tors

Heather Leu (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Phil Myers (ed­i­tor), Mu­seum of Zo­ol­ogy, Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Mac­don­ald, D. 1984. The en­cy­clo­pe­dia of mam­mals. New York: Facts on File Pub­li­ca­tions.

Walker, E., J. Par­adiso. 1975. Mam­mals of the world. Bal­ti­more and Lon­don: The John Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity Press.