A Kafue National Park survey in Zambia listed the Savanna Gerbil among the small mammals recorded only in grassland. An older Ethiopian catalogue described material under the historical name Tatera valida as pale underneath and lacking a terminal tail tuft.
The 1976 catalogue says animals identified there as Tatera valida were smaller than its other Ethiopian Tatera, pale underneath, and lacked a terminal tail tuft.
In the Kafue National Park habitat list, this species was recorded only in grassland among the surveyed habitat types.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.