The northern three-toed jerboa changes coat color with the seasons. It lives in dry grasslands and deserts and mainly eats plants and seeds.
Its underparts are white. The upperparts are orange and black in winter and pale sandy buff in summer. The account gives a body length of 11.5–14.5 cm and a weight of 69–104 g.
It mainly eats desert plants and seeds, with insects eaten occasionally. Its habitats include sandy steppe, desert, and semi-desert; in Central Asia it also occurs on hard rocky or gravelly ground.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.