Cape Short-eared Gerbil, Short-tailed Gerbil, Namaqua Gerbil, Namaqua Gerbille (English), Kortstertnagmuis, Namakwalandse Nagmuis (Afrikaans). Typically restricted to the hard soils of arid plains and pans, with a sparse cover of grass or low karroid shrubs, this species occurs throughout the Namib Desert, but is absent from soft, shifting dune sand (Skinner and Chimimba 2005). It is one of the few species that may be able to cope with degraded and modified landscapes. In Rolfontein Nature Reserve (Northern Cape Province) three specimens were caught in areas of short grass cover (Eragrostis truncate community) with hard calcareous soils (Jooste & Palmer 1982). To avoid the extreme temperatures in the region in which it occurs, these gerbils live in burrows and are nocturnal. The burrow systems are complicated and extensive with well-defined pathways between the burrow entrances (Rautenbach 1982). Despite this, they tend to be asocial and solitary (Nel 2013).