A small hamster with a dark stripe down the centre of its back. Its range includes steppe from southern Siberia through Mongolia and northeastern China to the Korean Peninsula.
A dark stripe runs along the middle of the back from the head towards the rump.
In a meadow-steppe study in Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, the hamster was more abundant where grass made up a larger share of the vegetation.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.