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Information about Kangaroo Rat

This article is about the American animal. For the Australian animal, see Hopping mouse.
Kangaroo rats
Fossil range: Late Pliocene - Recent

Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Mammalia
Subclass:Eutheria
Order:Rodentia
Family:Heteromyidae
Genus:Dipodomys
Gray, 1841
Species


22, see text


Kangaroo rats, genus Dipodomys, are small rodents native to North America. The name derives from their bipedal form: they hop like tiny kangaroos.

Twenty-two species are currently recognized. Their size varies from 100 to 200 mm, with a tail of equal or slightly greater length; weight can be anywhere between 35 and 180 grams. The most distinctive feature of the kangaroo rats is their very long hind legs.

Like the jerboas of African and Asian deserts and the hopping mice of outback Australia, kangaroo rats have highly developed hind legs, live in deep burrows that shelter them from the worst of the desert heat, and rarely drink water. Instead, they have a highly water-efficient metabolism (their kidneys are at least four times more efficient at retaining water and excreting salt than those of humans) and manufacture water through a metabolic process called oxidative phosphorylation. Despite sharing so many characteristics with jerboas and hopping mice, the three groups are not closely related to one another: the similarities are the result of convergent evolution.

Kangaroo rats are found in arid and semi-arid areas of the United States and Mexico that retain some grass or other vegetation. Their diet includes seeds, leaves, stems, buds, some fruit, and insects. Most kangaroo rat species use their burrows and buried caches nearby to store food against the possibility of bad seasons. The Banner-tailed Kangaroo Rat has been recorded making burrows with several storage chambers up to 25 cm in diameter each, and containing almost six kilograms of stored food.

Unlike the jerboas and hopping mice, but like their close relatives the pocket mice, kangaroo rats have large cheek pouches that open on either side of the mouth and extend back to the shoulders. They fill the pouches with food or nesting material ready for transport back to the burrow, then empty them by turning them inside out, like pockets, with their forepaws. There is a special muscle that, once the pouch is empty and clean, pulls it back in again.

The overall color of the kangaroo rats can be anywhere between pale, sandy yellow, and dark brown, with a white underside and often with white banding across the thighs. Tails tend to be dark with white sides and a tuft of longer hairs. Facial markings vary from one species to another, but all have an oil gland between the shoulders.

One special feature of the kangaroo rat is the animal's efficient kidneys. The kangaroo rat has a longer loop of Henle in the nephrons which permit a greater magnitude of countercurrent multiplication and thus a larger medullary vertical osmotic gradient. As a result, these rodents can produce urine that is concentrated up to an osmolarity of almost 6,000 mosm/liter, which is five times more concentrated than maximally concentrated human urine at 1,200 mosm/liter. Because of this tremendous concentration ability, kangaroo rats never have to drink; the H2O produced metabolically within their cells during oxidation of foodstuff (food plus O2 yields CO2 + H2O + energy) is sufficient for their body. Kangaroo rats lose so little water that they can recover 90% of the loss by using metabolic water gaining the remaining 10% from the small amount of water in their diet. Kangaroo rats lose water mainly by evaporation during gas exchange and gains water mainly from cellular metabolism.

External links

[1]
Notomys
Lesson, 1842

Species

N. alexis
N. amplus
N. aquillo
N. cervinus
N. fuscus
N.

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The Pliocene epoch (spelled Pleiocene in some older texts) is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.332 million to 1.806 million years before present.

The Pliocene is the second epoch of the Neogene period in the Cenozoic era.
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Scientific classification or biological classification is a method by which biologists group and categorize species of organisms. Scientific classification also can be called scientific taxonomy, but should be distinguished from folk taxonomy, which lacks scientific basis.
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Chordata
Bateson, 1885

Typical Classes

See below

Chordates (phylum Chordata) are a group of animals that includes the vertebrates, together with several closely related invertebrates.
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Mammalia
Linnaeus, 1758

Subclasses & Infraclasses
  • Subclass †Allotheria*
  • Subclass Prototheria
  • Subclass Theria

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Eutheria

Orders[1]
  • Bobolestes
  • Eomaia
  • Maelestes
  • Montanalestes
  • Murtoilestes
  • Prokennalestes
  • Placentalia
  • Superorder

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Rodentia
Bowdich, 1821

Suborders

Sciuromorpha
Castorimorpha
Myomorpha
Anomaluromorpha
Hystricomorpha
Rodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents
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Heteromyidae
Gray, 1868

Subfamilies

Dipodomyinae
Heteromyinae
Perognathinae

The family of rodents that include kangaroo rats, kangaroo mice and rock pocket mice is the Heteromyidae family.
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John Edward Gray

Born January 12 1800(1800--)
Walsall, England
Died March 07 1875 (aged 75)

Nationality British
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species is one of the basic units of biological classification. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.
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Rodentia
Bowdich, 1821

Suborders

Sciuromorpha
Castorimorpha
Myomorpha
Anomaluromorpha
Hystricomorpha
Rodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents
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North America is a continent [1] in the Earth's northern hemisphere and (chiefly) western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the south and west
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species is one of the basic units of biological classification. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.
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Dipodidae
Fischer de Waldheim, 1817

Genera

10 genera in 5 subfamilies

Jerboas are the members of the family Dipodidae; they are small jumping desert rodents of Asia and northern Africa that resemble mice with a long tufted tail and very
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Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30,221,532 km² (11,668,545 sq mi) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area, and 20.4% of the total land area.
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Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area (or 29.4% of its land area) and, with almost 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population.
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Notomys
Lesson, 1842

Species

N. alexis
N. amplus
N. aquillo
N. cervinus
N. fuscus
N.

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Anthem
Advance Australia Fair [1]


Capital Canberra

Largest city Sydney
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The kidneys are organs that filter wastes (such as urea) from the blood and excrete them, along with water, as urine. The medical field that studies the kidneys and diseases of the kidney is called nephrology[1].
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Oxidative phosphorylation is a metabolic pathway that uses energy released by the oxidation of nutrients to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Although the many forms of life on Earth utilize a range of different nutrients, almost all carry out oxidative phosphorylation to
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In evolutionary biology, convergent evolution is the process whereby organisms not closely related (not monophyletic), independently evolve similar traits as a result of having to adapt to similar environments or ecological niches[1].
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Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
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Anthem
Himno Nacional Mexicano


Capital
(and largest city) Mexico City

Official languages Spanish (
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Perognathus
Wied-Neuwied, 1839

Species

Perognathus alticola
Perognathus amplus
Perognathus fasciatus
Perognathus flavescens
Perognathus flavus
Perognathus inornatus

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The kidneys are organs that filter wastes (such as urea) from the blood and excrete them, along with water, as urine. The medical field that studies the kidneys and diseases of the kidney is called nephrology[1].
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In the kidney, the loop of henle is the portion of the nephron that leads from the proximal convoluted tubule to the distal convoluted tubule. The loop has a hairpin bend in the renal medulla. The main function of this structure is to reabsorb water and ions from the urine.
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Osmosis is the net movement of water across a partially permeable membrane from a region of high solvent potential to an area of low solvent potential, up a solute concentration gradient.
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Urine is a liquid produced by animals through the kidney, and is collected in the bladder and excreted through the urethra.

Urine formation helps to maintain the balance of minerals and other substances in the body.
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