Tests revise image of kangaroo rats

The textbook case of how to survive in a desert may have important details wrong, according to new studies of kangaroo rats.

Species in the genus Dipodomys, nocturnal rodents that scurry through North America’s deserts, have epitomized toughness in punishing climates, says Randall Tracy of the University of Connecticut in Storrs. Earlier researchers, he says, marveled at how the creatures apparently got water by metabolizing seeds and avoided overheating by staying in cool burrows until late at night.