Template:Did you know nominations/Dune hairy-footed gerbil

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 00:19, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Dune hairy-footed gerbil

(

)

... that the dune hairy-footed gerbil looks after its coat by frequent sand-bathing? Source: "Sandbathes frequently to maintain coat condition"

Reviewed: Jihan Wu

5x expanded by Cwmhiraeth (talk). Self-nominated at 10:31, 19 September 2019 (UTC).

Starting review --valereee (talk) 12:07, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: valereee (talk) 12:07, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

As usual, an easy to review DYK. I am wondering about the hook, which is possibly not the most interesting thing about this animal. I thought the fact it built its burrows beside/under a plant whose roots stabilised the sandy soil was pretty interesting, and the photo caption maybe makes it even more so -- do the sources indicate the animal chooses the plant both to conceal its burrow entrance and because of the stabilisation, or is that all just serendipitous? --valereee (talk) 12:16, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

@Valereee: I would say that in the "nara" hummocks, where it digs its burrows under the plant, the burrow entrances would be concealed and the roots would stabilise the soil, but that is not precisely what the source states, as it just mentions the roots of the other two plants as stabilising the soil. Incidentally, the hairs on the soles of its feet prevent the feet from getting overheated from walking on hot sand as well as improving its foothold in shifting sand, but the source doesn't say that either. I rather liked the idea of sand-bathing, but we could have

ALT1 ... that the dune hairy-footed gerbil locates its burrows close to plants where the roots stabilise the shifting sand? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:45, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

I like that a lot! (And the hairs on its soles, bummer that's not available!) Approving both ALTs with a preference to ALT1. --valereee (talk) 13:15, 20 September 2019 (UTC)