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Libya in search of mammals that serve as hosts of insect parasites and disease carriers.  The country is largely desert, and its mammals are nearly all small creatures adapted through millennia for survival under desert conditions.
   The biped rats are the jerboas, animals 7 to 8 inches long with big bushy tails, which ordinarily progress on their hind legs, somewhat after the fashion of kangaroos.  They are probably the best-known creatures of the northern desert.
   Jerboas have adjusted to desert conditions primarily by becoming seed gatherers.  Through most of the year vegetation in the Libyan desert is very scant, but it becomes quite abundant after one the infrequent rains and sets its seed very quickly.  The jerboas gather seeds and store them in subterranean chambers.  They are also, however, avid eaters of whatever vegetation they can find.
   Other Libyan animals collected by Dr. Setzer are the mouselike gerbils and the desert hedgehogs that are related to the shrews are quite similar to European hedgehogs.

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FORMER CURATOR HERE
   Dr. E. A. Chapin, former curator of insects, is at the Museum arranging a collection of Coccinellidae (lady beetles, to most of us).  Dr. Chapin arrived at the end of March for about a 10-day stay.

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