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The word dormouse comes from Middle English dormous, of uncertain origin, possibly from a dialectal *dor-, from Old Norse dár 'benumbed' and Middle English mous 'mouse'.. The word is sometimes conjectured to come from an Anglo-Norman derivative of dormir 'to sleep', with the second element mistaken for mouse, but no such Anglo-Norman term is known to have existed.
Dormice are small rodents, with body lengths between 6 and 19 cm (2.4 and 7.5 in), and weight between 15 and 180 g (0.53 and 6.35 oz). [6] They are generally mouse-like in appearance, but with furred tails. They are largely arboreal, agile, and well adapted to climbing. Most species are nocturnal.
The same year, using camera traps and Spurentunnel (a tunnel-like device that forces animals to step into an ink container, and leave footprints), the first recorded sightings of garden dormice in more than 100 years were made in Büsserach. [5] The luminescence of a hibernating garden dormouse photographed from the dorsal and ventral sides.
The platacanthomyids can be distinguished from the true dormice, because they have no premolars, giving them three cheek teeth, like their relatives, the Muroidea. The evolutionary relationship of the Platacanthomyidae was uncertain until a molecular phylogenetic study found it to be the earliest extant lineage to branch within the superfamily ...
The hazel dormouse is native to northern Europe and Asia Minor. It is the only dormouse native to the British Isles, and is therefore often referred to simply as the "dormouse" in British sources, although the edible dormouse, Glis glis, has been accidentally introduced and now has an established population in South East England.
Dormice are Old World mammals in the family Gliridae, part of the rodent order. (This family is also variously called Myoxidae or Muscardinidae by different taxonomists). Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gliridae .
[66] [67] While many dormice are smallish (roughly vole or mouse sized), the edible species is often more than five times larger, being close in dimensions to the European water vole. Therefore, the prey biomass must have been hearty in Montenegro, where the edible dormouse was the main food, at 24.1% of 529 prey items.
The Japanese dormouse (Glirulus japonicus) is a species of rodent in the family Gliridae endemic to Japan. It is the only extant species within the genus Glirulus. [2] Its natural habitat is temperate forests. In Japanese, it is called yamane (やまね or 山鼠). Among dormice, it has the special ability of running at great speed upside down ...