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GrrlScientist is an evolutionary biologist, ornithologist, aviculturist, birder and freelance science and nature writer. A native of the Pacific Northwest, she relocated from Seattle to NYC with her parrots after earning a BS in Microbiology (emphasis in Virology) and PhD in Zoology (Ornithology) from the University of Washington. In NYC, she was the Chapman Postdoctoral Fellow at the American Museum of Natural History for two years, pursuing part of her "dream" research project by reconstructing a molecular phylogeny of the parrots of the South Pacific islands. GrrlScientist has written a blog about science since 4 August 2004 (the early years are archived here) and was part of the original invited group of 14 "SciBlings" -- her only claim to fame. If you appreciate GrrlScientist's writing, please help her pay her living expenses by clicking on the Paypal button below and by voting for her to be the official blogger on a month long adventure in Antarctica. If you read an essay that you especially enjoyed, please nominate it for OpenLab2009.
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Topic Categories: Humor • Pets • Streaming videos • Wow!
Posted on: May 15, 2008 8:59 AM, by "GrrlScientist"
tags: golden hamster, pets, behavior, humor, streaming video
I love hamsters. In this streaming video, we get to see something that I loved to do with my pet golden hamster, Caesar, when I was a kid; I would see how much food he could stuff into his face. I would actually count the number of seeds he crammed in there. Watching this video makes me want to get .. you guessed it .. another hamster! AIIEEE! [2:07].
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Comments
That's hilarious. I suppose it has to spit the food out later in order to be able to chew it up?
When I saw the post title I couldn't help thinking to myself, gee, that's kind of out of character for GrrlScientist to think that vacuuming up hamsters would be funny...
Posted by: Kurt | May 15, 2008 11:28 AM
yes, the hamster has to spit out the collected food from its cheek pouches before they can eat it. but hamsters are so good at collecting seeds that, back in the good old days, the local farmers would raid their nests to recover some of their lost harvests. well -- that's what i read when i was a kid, so i can't be sure if it's really true.
Posted by: "GrrlScientist" | May 15, 2008 11:39 AM
I kept pet hamsters in high school and college, though I can no longer have them at home, since I now work on other rodents (mice) in the lab, and there's always the potential to inadvertently transfer diseases (though many people ignore that fact). My sister and I had two cream-colored "teddy bear" hamsters, and they loved Cheerios. They would stuff their pouches so full that they couldn't enter and crawl through their Habitrail tubes, to get to the "stash" compartment. It's fun to watch them push on the sides of their cheeks to empty the pouches, too.
Posted by: Barn Owl | May 15, 2008 9:20 PM
It's the European common hamster whose burrows farmers would raid for stored grain. Since much of the grain came from the farmers' fields in the first place, this was more like stealing it back. I think this species is still considered an agricultural pest.
The pet hamster is actually the Syrian golden, which is very rare in the wild.
Posted by: Maureen Lycaon | May 15, 2008 10:45 PM
I have this image of hamsters used like the Asian fishermen's cormorants: leashed with fishing line, turned out onto harvested fields to glean every last grain, and reeled back in when their cheeks were stuffed.
Posted by: Sheri Williamson | May 17, 2008 4:24 PM