Features of the Syrian hamster's lifestyle

In Djungarian hamsters, all male individuals practically do not store food for future use, and females constantly arrange large storage rooms in the corner of their home. In the Syrian hamster, both males and females always make reserves. The guys and I decided to learn more about these interesting animals from books, find out why Syrian hamsters build storage rooms and what determines the activity (hoarding) of this animal.

From books we learned that the Syrian hamster belongs to the mouse family of the rodent order. The very first description of golden hamsters was published in 1797.

Its thick, clumsy, stocky body on short legs reaches 20 cm in length and is covered with thick velvety hair. The color of a hamster's fur is varied, from white to black. This animal has a small leathery tail (up to 1.5 cm in length) with sparse shiny hair. The hamster's head is pointed with small shiny eyes and large cheek pouches, which are used by the animal when preparing food for future use.

Hamsters have a courageous, but at the same time irritable, grumpy and quarrelsome character. They are aggressive even towards each other and often bite their own kind to death.

In nature, female and male hamsters lead a separate lifestyle and live apart. At a depth of 2 - 2.5 m, this animal makes a separate burrow, consisting of several chambers, where it uses the small one for living, and the large one for storing various supplies for the winter. These thrifty animals feed mainly on grain seeds and get water from plants.

The Syrian (golden) hamster was first discovered in 1839 in the Arabian Desert. The Syrian hamster became known to science only a century later (in 1930).

During an expedition to Syria, researcher I. Aharoni managed to catch a female hamster with a litter, which gave rise to a new laboratory animal. From one male and three females, this scientist received about 150 offspring within a year. Hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of these golden-yellow rodents now live in the cages of research institutes and just among hobbyists. All of them came from one male and three females raised by the scientist Aharoni.

In a city apartment, Syrian hamsters are kept separately from each other, otherwise they constantly fight. Every day, these thrifty animals, just like their ancestors, set up storage rooms in the corner of their cage, where they carry everything they are fed. When a hamster places the contents of its pouches on the table, a pile is formed that can be three times the size of the hamster itself.

We couldn’t find out from the books what the activity of the Syrian hamster depends on when storing food in reserve, and we decided to find the answer to the question “Who has a bigger pantry?” ourselves.

Each of the guys who has this animal at home claimed that his favorite is the most economical.

Laboratory hamsters have preserved the habits of their wild ancestors (instinct). Hamsters in urban environments (laboratories, zoo corners, human dwellings) and in natural conditions lead an isolated lifestyle. As in the wild, in urban environments these animals are kept separately and constantly stock up on food for future use.

The results of the experiment (based on observation of the behavior of heterosexual specimens of laboratory hamsters) confirmed our assumptions.

First. The activity of the Syrian hamster when preparing food for future use depends on its individual characteristics.

Second. The female Syrian hamster is more thrifty. Just like in the wild, in captivity one has to take care of its offspring. Since this trait of hamsters is individual for each individual, the offspring of the female Syrian hamster Mani would have a better chance of surviving in the harsh conditions of the wild, because they would have a more caring and thrifty mother.