Eva's Spiny Mice Page

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The scientific name of the common spiny mouse is Acomys cahirinus. Common names of this species includes Arabian Spiny Mouse, Egyptian Spiny Mouse and Cairo Spiny Mouse.

Colours and Varieties

Today at least 4 different varieties of the common spiny mouse exists. Here in Sweden so far only two are available, agouti, the normal wild colour, and cream colour, which is a lighter version of the wild colour. Both Bastian and Milou are agouti coloured.

In our neighbour country Finland there are two more varieties. The white spotted spiny mice and the rex, a curly coated version of the normal fur, with curly spines and curly whiskers.

In Finland there is a long tradition of breeding and showing small pets, and they have very fine animals.

In Egypt a dark grey version of the common spiny mouse lives in the wild nature.

Genetics

I have no information about genetics of the spiny mouse at the moment.

Relatives

One close relative to the common spiny mouse can sometimes be found in pet shops here in Sweden. That is the Acomys russatus - another species of spiny mouse, and you can easily see that thy don't look the same as our common spiny mice since they are black. The common names of Acomys russatus are Golden Spiny Mouse and Russet Spiny Mouse. These animals have more spines all over than the common spiny mice, and they have small ears. They do exist in at least two more colours than black in the wild. They are normally a bit more aggressive towards eachother than the common spiny mouse.

Behaviour

Spiny mice are extremely curious. As an example I can describe what my spiny mice do when I clean they cage. I put in an empty glass jar on the bottom of their cage, laying on the side. Almost immideately one of my spiny mice goes into the glass jar to examine it from the inside. So I just lift him out and put him into a transport cage. Then I put back the glass jar, and almost immediately my second spiny mouse goes inside to examine it. So then I lift him out too, and I always put them in separate transport cages during cage cleaning, just in case.

Well, that's how curious they are! If a stranger walks up to their cage they come out immediately to look at the stranger. This curoius behaviour makes them seem rather smart for such a small animal. Lately my spiny mice have started on a new behaviour - everytime I have cleaned their cage I just have to put the transport cage on top of their cage and they jump out, look for the open hatch, and walk inside their cage of their own. It certainly looks as if they knew exactly what they are doing :-)

Litterature

Of all the books I own about small pets only one contains a few lines about spiny mice. That is the book "Fancy Mice" by Chris Henwood, published in 1992.

Care

Behaviour:
I have had people emailing me and asking about spiny mice chasing eachother. Now that I just bought my own spiny mice I soon realized why. They do chase eachother. Mine only do it at night, and only a few times per night. I asked the breeder I bought Bastian and Milou from and got this information:

Spiny mice chase eachother when they are mating.
Spiny mice chase eachother when they are trying to establish hierarchy.
Spiny mice chase eachother when they are playing.
Active spiny mice chase eachother more.

That is the common chasing.

Then they also chase eachother when there are too many spiny mice in the same cage and when the cage is too small. This is the bad chasing. When they do the bad chasing they often bite eachother. They can bite eachother on the tail, on the ears and the sides of the body. If you see spiny mice that had bite marks you know they are not well taken care of.