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Hamsters
Glasgow
Zoo's first President was the late Professor Ernest
Hindle , professor of Zoology at Glasgow University and the man
largely credited with the capture of the last golden hamster and her
12 young from a burrow in Aleppo in Syria.
From
these few animals, most of the millions in captivity are descended.
In the late 1970s, we imported some of the black mutation of the
Mongolian Gerbil from the Harlow Space Research Centre in the United
States, and, after quarantine, crossed them with the British Golden
or Argente.
From
them, all the dove grey gerbils in Britain and the world are descended.
The
Children's Farm at Glasgow ZooPark has a variety of hamsters available
for all visitors to handle and enjoy.
The news that a house fire in Newcastle under Lyme was almost certainly
caused by a hamster's exercise wheel interested me a great deal.
Loss adjusters believe the friction caused by the hamster pedalling
round its little wheel caused sparks or combustion of its bedding
- and 400 gbps of damage to the living room of the house.
Owning a hamster is one of those experiences enjoyed by many at
some time during childhood.
I would estimate that several million children have owned a hamster,
not to mention the incalculable numbers still to experience this
great childhood pleasure. Technically, the wild Golden Hamster is
an endangered species, saved from total extinction by captive breeding.
Strange you never hear this mentioned in conservation or animal
welfare circles.
Hamster
Wheel Usage
Anyone
who has ever owned a female Golden Hamster will have noticed variations
in her behaviour. For example, when she uses her wheel, sometimes
it is in a frenzy and other times a more normal pace.
This is because a female hamster comes into season every four days,
or, as she is nocturnal, nights.
Under normal conditions she is barely fertile on the fourth day
at 7pm, yet highly fertile by 11pm and then reducing to infertile
again by 7am the next day.
In-between these hours, she'll be running in her wheel like an automaton.
In the wild, this would be a necessary adaptation to successfully
finding a mate.
This frenetic activity would result in her repeatedly criss-crossing
territory, thus maximising all opportunities for encountering a
male. With regard to the friction of the spinning wheel, this is
not as unlikely as at first might appear, especially if the wheel
and cage are made of metal.
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