AY Honors/Small Mammal Pets/Answer Key

The Syrian Hamster or Golden Hamster, Mesocricetus auratus, is the best known member of the rodent subfamily Cricetinae, the hamsters. They may now be extinct in the wild, but are popular as house pets all across the world, and are also used in scientific research. Adults grow from 12.5 to 17.5 cm (5 to 7 inches) in length, and in captivity will usually live from 2 to 3 years.

Biology

Like most members of the subfamily, the Golden Hamster has expandable cheek pouches, which reach from its cheeks to its shoulders. In the wild, hamsters are larder hoarders, and they use their cheek pouches to transport food to their burrows. They can load a remarkable amount of food into their pouches; their name in the local Arabic dialect in the area where they are found translates as "father of saddlebags" أبو جراب. If food is plentiful, they will store it in large amounts, and it has been reported that 25 kg of grain was found in the burrow of a single hamster. They have the shortest gestation period known in any mammal at only 16 to 18 days. They can produce large litters although around twelve is the average litter size. Captive breeding has to be thought about carefully. The female must be in season when placed with a male or she will try to kill him. Hamsters come into season every four days.

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male teddy bear hamster

Most hamsters in American and British pet stores are Syrian Hamsters. Originally, Syrian Hamsters came in just one color — the mixture of brown, black, and gold which gave them their "Golden" name — but they have since developed a myriad of color mutations such as cream, white, blonde, banded, tortoiseshell, tortoisehell and white (also known as calico), and sable. Therefore in pet stores today, Golden Hamster is only used to label the original coloration (also known as agouti), in America other-colored short-hairs are banded under the label Fancy Hamster. Teddy Bear is a term used to describe the long-haired variety of the Syrian Hamster, named so for their remarkable resemblance to toy teddy bears these are simply long haired syrians. They are also sometimes known as "angora hamsters". Male teddy bear hamsters usually have much longer fur than the female variety, culminating in a "skirt" of longer fur around their backsides. 'Black bear hamsters' are often seen for sale in less reputable pet shops. these are self marked black coloured syrians. The teddy bear and black bear names are used by some shops to make the colours sound more 'exotic' and saleable. they are not a different breed. they are a different colour mutation.

Syrian Hamsters are wildly popular as housepets due to their docile, inquisitive natures and small size. They are popular as "first pets" for young children, as well as being classroom animals, because of their hardiness and relative ease of care. Some pet owners find them more attractive in relation to rats and other rodents due to their lack of visible tails. When kept as pets, however, Syrians must be housed, past the age or six weeks in single sex groups and housed indevidually by the time they are ten weeks old. Syrian hamsters are notoriously territorial, and will frequently attack and, indeed, kill, other adult hamsters of the same sex or of the opposite sex if the female is not in season. .

Syrian Hamsters have also been used in scientific research — in the study of many diseases, as well as in the study of behaviour. They have a number of fixed action patterns that are readily observed, including scent-marking. They are particularly used in airway and respiratory physiology research.

Discovery

dark-eared white hamster

In 1839 British zoologist George Robert Waterhouse reportedly found an elderly female hamster in Syria, naming it Cricetus auratus, the Golden Hamster. The hamster's fur was on display at the British Museum (Natural History). The Syrian Hamster was then ignored by European science for the next century.

In 1930, Israel Aharoni, a zoologist and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, found a mother and litter of hamsters in the Syrian desert. By the time he got back to his lab, most had died or escaped. The remaining hamsters were given to his university, where they were successfully bred. They were a bit bigger than the ones Waterhouse found, so they were named Mesocricetus auratus, although they were probably the same species. Mesocricetus auratus is the currently accepted scientific name of Syrian Hamsters.

Descendants of these hamsters were shipped to scientific labs around the world, for use as research animals. They arrived in the United Kingdom in 1931, and in 1938 reached the United States. Soon after their initial discovery, they were found to make great pets. Just about all Syrian Hamsters are descended from the original litter found in Syria, except for a few that were brought into the United States by travellers who found them in the desert. A separate stock of hamsters was imported into the US in 1971, but it isn't known if any of today's North American pets are descended from them.

See also

• Hamster

References

• Template:IUCN2006 Listed as Endangered (EN B1+2c v2.3)

It is very usefull

External links

• Syrian Hamster
• RaztheHamster - Syrian Hamster Gallery
• Hamster Heaven
• Xander.it - Video collection of Syrian hamsters (page is in Italian)
• Genome information
• Petwebsite Entry on Syrians
• The River Road Hamstery- Very good information on hamster breeding, especially for coat types
• The Hamster Society
• AllyKat Exotics Syrian Hamster Breeder