A longitudinal study was designed to accurately measure the movements of Meriones (M.) shawi using geographic information systems and radio-telemetry tools. Radio collars were placed on the necks of 30 M. shawi on April 2012 and tracked by radio-telemetry until December 2012 in an endemic area of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in Tunisia. The mean home range, the mean of the maximum distance between the start and the final locations and the mean of the real traveled distance linking all detected positions for each rodent were calculated. Two coefficients of diffusion were estimated, corresponding to the pre-and post-harvest seasons, respectively. This study demonstrated and quantified, for the first time, the ecological niche and the migratory capacity of the M. shawi, and confirmed its crucial role in the geographical dispersal of Leishmania parasites and the emergence of epizootics and epidemics in new foci.