[2] Ignoring distinctions between species, Rhabdomys as a genus is widespread and abundant in the Southern African subregion.

[11] Rhabdomys are fairly omnivorous and will eat some kinds of insects opportunistically, but their main foods are seeds and other vegetable matter such as certain forbs.

They will also eat the underground storage organs of certain small species of geophytes, such as edible Moraeas, which they can locate by smell and dig up.

Though they are by no means generally regarded as serious pests, their depredations can be unwelcome to grain farmers and horticulturists when their population happens to be high.

[13] Rhabdomys has a flexible social organisation and mating system that appears to be shaped primarily by resource (particularly food and cover) availability and, secondarily, by population density.

In arid habitats (e.g. Namib;[16] Kalahari;[17][18] succulent karoo[19][20] Rhabdomys can be described as a territorial, group-living, solitary forager that displays biparental care.

[21] In mesic, grassland habitats (e.g. Kwa-Zulu Natal Midlands;[22] Pretoria Highveld;[23] Zimbabwe grassland;[24] and semi-succulent thorny scrub (e.g. Eastern Cape[25]) animals are solitary, with females rearing their litters on their own, and both sexes maintain territories that overlap the territories of the opposite, but not the same, sex.