Thumping back feet?

[sugarspice]

Sugar at breakfast time when I opened the cage to put her and Spice's breakfast in, decided to start stamping her back paws, she came out of the den to have a look then felt the need to stamp her back paws on top of one of the tunnels they both made

What's stamping back paws on a tunnel mean? The only thing that was happening was I was putting their breakfast into the cage/tank?

[LilyandDaisy]

Thumping usually means they're a bit worried or scared of something. It's a way of warning other gerbils in the clan of potential danger and is often accompanied by all the gerbils darting into the burrow. Sugar was probably startled by the movement of your hand. It always amazes me how much noise they can make stamping on soft bedding.

Sometimes females in heat will thump too but it sounds different, quieter and a different rhythm.

[sugarspice]

Can gerbils see okay above ground? I did hear they are basically blind above ground but don't know if that's true or not. If they can't see above ground could that be why Sugar got scared?

[LilyandDaisy]

Gerbils have a fair amount of vision, but as far as I know it's not very precise. This means that they are good at detecting movement within their range of vision, but they won't necessarily recognise exactly what it is. This is because as a prey animal there's no point wasting time trying to see what a sudden movement is when it could be a predator, it's safer to flee first and ask questions later. Sugar might have seen the sudden movement of your hand but didn't know what it was, so her instinct was to suspect danger.

[Markpd]

Isn't it only some of the red (pink) eyed Gerbils that have really bad eye sight?

[Pim]

Yes the pink eyed gerbils do have worse eye sight than recular gerbils but like lilyandDaisy said all gerbils can see far away but not very precisely