Environmental enrichment facilitates foraging behavior.

Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) were tested at 24 months of age after having experienced an outdoor desert environment for one hour each month after weaning, or at 8 months of age after being reared from birth in outsize cages in the laboratory. Both groups of enriched gerbils found food more rapidly than did 24-month-old handled controls, 8-month-old naive gerbils, or 8-month-old gerbils reared in small cages. There were no differences in locomotor activity, in latency to emerge from a small box, or in attention to novel objects or conspecific odors. Efficiency in finding food was not associated with types of food chosen, and the foods selected were not directly related to types of food eaten previously.