A final question related to social behaviour is: how do mammals communicate in desert environments? Kangaroo rats communicate identity through scent deposited at sandbathing sites, and at least one species ( D. Heteromyids of both sexes mate with familiar neighbours in both exclusive and multiple matings. Spatial overlap and delayed dispersal, which lead to temporary family groups and long-term occupancy of the same home ranges, facilitate neighbour recognition. Comparative studies of heteromyids also can answer questions about the evolution of mammalian social organization, such as: how social are solitary rodents? Solitary heteromyids have a well-integrated social system promoted by the establishment of familiarity with close neighbours. Two kangaroo rat species confront snakes by kicking sand and footdrumming. Kangaroo rats and mice escape by bipedal locomotion after detecting either low-frequency sounds made by predator movements, or snake odours. Many heteromyids avoid visually hunting predators on moonlit nights by switching their activity from open microhabitats to shrub habitat. Another question of interest is how heteromyids avoid diverse predators in open habitats. Foraging choices are complex, and heteromyids optimize foraging based on interactions of multiple factors: size, distribution, energy, nutritional value and water content of seeds soil density and texture and their ability to cache and recover seeds. A key question in the foraging literature is how desert granivores co-exist. As many as six species of these seed-eating mammals co-exist in habitats ranging from wind-blown sand and desert shrub to grassland and chaparral. Most heteromyids, unlike other rodents, are nocturnal inhabitants of arid environments. and Chaetodipus spp.) make excellent models for answering questions about the evolution of diverse behaviour patterns. Heteromyid rodents (kangaroo rats, Dipodomys spp.

Desert pocket mouse adaptations