Romans fattened dormice in special jars and served them dipped in honey
Dormice can sleep through half the year, fattening up in summer and hibernating six months or more. That habit made them a Roman delicacy, raised in special enclosures and eaten as a starter or a honeyed dessert. Elizabethans went further and believed dormouse fat could make people sleep.
Dormice form the rodent family Gliridae, with nine genera and 28 living species spread across Africa, Asia and Europe; half belong to the African genus Graphiurus. They look like mice with furry tails, measure 6 to 19 centimetres and weigh 15 to 180 grams. Most are nocturnal, agile climbers that live in trees, communicate with a range of calls and hear extremely well. They eat berries, flowers, fruit, insects and nuts, and are unique among rodents in lacking a caecum, the gut pouch others use to ferment plant food.
Temperate species build their year around hibernation. They store fat through summer and may stay dormant for six months, or longer if spring is cold, occasionally waking to nibble food cached nearby. Litters average four young after a pregnancy of 22 to 24 days; the babies are born naked and blind, open their eyes at about 18 days and usually mature only after their first winter sleep. A dormouse can live up to five years.
The English name probably combines an old dialect element meaning numb or torpid with mouse. The popular idea that it comes from the French for sleep lacks evidence, since no such Anglo-Norman word is known. The Latin glis, root of the scientific name, goes back to an ancient word for weasel or mouse.
Fossils suggest dormice began in Europe; the earliest genus, Eogliravus, lived in France about 48 to 41 million years ago. They diversified in the Oligocene, perhaps when hibernation evolved, and around 17 million years ago Europe alone held 18 genera and 36 species, making them its dominant rodents. Isolated on Mediterranean islands, some grew huge, including the rabbit-sized Leithia of Sicily and Malta. The edible dormouse is still eaten in Slovenia and parts of Croatia, and the African woodland dormouse turns up in the exotic pet trade.
Source: Dormouse
