The fat-tailed gerbil has a round body and a short, thick, club-shaped tail. It lives in sandy areas with vegetation and digs burrows.
Its fur is long and fluffy, and it has a round body, large oval eyes, and low-set ears. The short tail is thick and club-shaped. Coat color ranges from gray to tan among subspecies and regions.
In its North African range, it lives in vegetated sand sheets and sometimes rocky desert. It uses burrows it digs itself as well as burrows made by other rodents.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.