Facts about Dormice
Dormice tend to be omnivorous, typically feeding on fruits, berries, flowers, nuts and insects.
The feet of dormice have four toes on the front feet and five toes on the hind feet.
Dormice species most commonly dwell in forest, woodland, and scrub habitats, and are trypically arboreal, with some in dense forests only periodically leaving the canopy of tall trees.
Many dragons also represent wisdom; slaying a dragon not only gave access to its treasure hoard, but meant the hero had bested the most cunning of all creatures.
Some species have thin and naked tails, such as the mouse-tailed dormice (genus Myomimus).
Dormice are found in Europe, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, western and central Asia, and Japan.
The African dormice (genus Graphiurus), which are all found in sub-Saharan Africa, typically are found in forested habiats.
Most dormice are adapted to a predominantly arboreal existence, although the mouse-tailed dormice dwell on the ground.
The garden or orchard dormouse (Eliomys querimus) and the edible dormice (Glis glis) sometimes are found in orchards, with the later even able to live on the ground.
During the Pleistocene, giant dormice the size of large rats, such as Leithia melitensis, lived on the islands of Malta and Sicily (Savage and Long 1986).
Dormice breed once or maybe twice a year, producing litters with an average of four young after a gestation period of 21-32 days.
Dormice have an excellent sense of hearing, and signal each other with a variety of vocalisations (Baudoin 1984).
Dormice historically and currently have been used by humans as food, with records of such usage dating back thousands of years.
Dormice particularly are known for their long periods of hibernation, with the etymology of the common name itself tracing from the word to sleep.
Only the mouse-tailed dormice (genus Myomimus) is known to exclusively live on the ground.