It's recently been brought to our attention that there is a health issue in the lines from Poland, which migrated to the Czech Republic and is now appearing in the UK and Germany.

After having repeatedly requested any sort of history of the gerbils brought from the continent, in all honestly it comes as little surprise that something else beyond the paralysis and epilepsy in the lines has popped up.

From what we can gather it's been known for a while now that some gerbils are suffering from spots around the eyes, this is in all lines and not contained to only wavy lines.

I will not rant too much about husbandry or morals when knowing there are health issues but instead try to stick to experience and try to properly document what's happening here.

 Gerbils, jirds and in fact all species on earth are designated a two-part Latin name to identify them. This system of classifying animals is known as 'binomial nomenclature'. These names are useful but also important too because they allow people around the world, no matter what language they speak, to write and communicate to others about any particular species. In theory, every name given is unique to that animal. The scientific name designated to each animal also give clues as to what their relationships are to other animals. The name of each species is given a generic name and also a specific name. The generic name tells us what genus they come from. Some genera only have one species but the vast majority of them have many.

The 2012 MidAtlantic Gerbil Show The show was held on January 28, 2012 at the World of Pets Expo in Timonium, Maryland.

This show concluded the end of my training to become an AGS Official Judge. I thoroughly enjoyed working with the other judges and found them to be very informative and knowledgeable.