Have Gerbils & Hamsters ever been, y'know, feral?

[Shirley Ujest]

I can't imagine our little fuzzy friends running wild and free over the ...tundra, serengetti, plains....just where do gerbies and Hammies come from?

[Colibri]

The Syrian, or Golden Hamster Mesocricetus auratus, the species most commonly kept as a pet, is native to eastern Europe and the Middle East. All of the domestic stock is descended from a single group captured in Syria in 1930. It is possible that the original wild population is now extinct.

There are many species of gerbils. The one most commonly kept as a pet is the Clawed Jird Meriones unguiculatus. Its natural habitat is semidesert and steppe in Mongolia. They were first brought to the US as research animals in 1954.

[The Devil's Grandmother]

The creatures we know now may have been bred for the smallness.
According to Britannica, Gerbil…is a burrowing rodent native to desert and near-desert regions of Africa and Asia. (http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article?tocId=9274534 )
Also according to Britannica, hamsters are "any of 18 Eurasian species of rodents possessing internal cheek pouches. The golden hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) of Syria is commonly kept as a pet." Some other websites also seem to indicate a desert background for hamsters.
I can't seem to find the right search phrase to find out where one might currently see mighty herds of gerbils and hamsters roaming free, sorry.

[Captain Amazing]

Here's a website on gerbils. There apparently are 87 different species, ranging from Africa to central Asia.

http://www.gerbil-info.com/html/other_gerbil_species.htm

I'm still trying to find out how many different species of hamster there are, but apparently, only 5 species are usually kept as pets. The pet species of hamster are:

Syrian Hamster
Dwarf Campbell Russian Hamster
Chinese Hamster
Roborovskii Hamster
Winter White Russian Hamster

As far as I can tell, though, hamsters range from Europe (the European Field Hamster was hunted as a pest, and is now endangered) to Siberia.

[Colibri]

The Syrian, or Golden Hamster Mesocricetus auratus, the species most commonly kept as a pet, is native to eastern Europe and the Middle East. All of the domestic stock is descended from a single group captured in Syria in 1930. It is possible that the original wild population is now extinct.

To clarify, the true Golden Hamster, Mesocricetus auratus, is (or was) found only in the vicinity of Aleppo, Syria. Another form, M. brandti , is sometimes considered a subspecies of the Golden Hamster, and this has a wider range in the Middle East.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Wild Hamsters have been captured in Syria in the last 30 years LINK. (http://www.petwebsite.com/history.htm)

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

And, apparently, China is being overrun by giant fire-breathing gerbils LINK (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3162743.stm), except they don't breath fire. So sue me. :p

[Shirley Ujest]

From Bosda's firebreathin' gerbil link:

An explosion of gerbils is decimating vast areas of grasslands in China's north-western Xinjiang region, with some of the prairies completely destroyed by hundreds of rodent burrows, according to authorities in the region.

An Explosion of Gerbils would be an excellent user name.

87 different kinds of Gerbils....the mind boggles.

[silenus]

Wow. Giant gerbils.


Has anyone told Richard Gere yet? :D

[bouv]

Thik about it this way.

Mice are wild, right? They are just as cute and fuzzy, yet we have no problem imagining themi n the wild, So why is it hard to imagine a hamster or gerbil?

(Oh, and if you've ever owned a tempermental hamster, you will know that they must have been feral at some point, the way those f*ckers bite.)

[butler1850]

And, apparently, China is being overrun by giant fire-breathing gerbils LINK (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3162743.stm), except they don't breath fire. So sue me. :p

Sounds like they are in league with the Nazi Groundhogs.

[CynicalGabe]

Wow. Giant gerbils.


Has anyone told Richard Gere yet? :D

Damn it!! Why does someone always beat me to it?

[Finagle]

I can't imagine our little fuzzy friends running wild and free over the ...tundra, serengetti, plains....just where do gerbies and Hammies come from?

I know you didn't explicitly ask, but consider the plight of another common family pet, the Guinea Pig. In Peru, they call it lunch (http://freespace.virgin.net/tobys.world/care01.html).

[Colibri]

I know you didn't explicitly ask, but consider the plight of another common family pet, the Guinea Pig. In Peru, they call it lunch (http://freespace.virgin.net/tobys.world/care01.html).

They are quite tasty; I've had them a couple of times at fancy restaurants in Cuzco.

[Colibri]

Wild Hamsters have been captured in Syria in the last 30 years LINK. (http://www.petwebsite.com/history.htm)

The last one apparently in 1982.

[Shirley Ujest]

I've never thought about gerbils and hamster out in the wild, just like I don't consider poodles origns as hunting dogs. It is in.con.ceiv.able.

I think that they all live in some huge habitrail some where until it is time to go to their new home.

[Mangetout]

The last one apparently in 1982.
For 20 minutes.

[uglybeech]

And of course there's the Filigree Siberian Hamster (http://www.fawltysite.net/Images/basiltherat02.jpg) which some of you may remember from Fawlty Towers (http://www.fawltysite.net/episode12.htm)

[violacrane]

The thing with the pouches is a very efficient system. While other small rodents have to stay in the open eating their food where they find it hamsters just stuff and go. Handy trait for such tasty little morsels to have in a world of cats, foxes, owls and raptors!

[roger thornhill]

I've never thought about gerbils and hamster out in the wild, just like I don't consider poodles origns as hunting dogs. It is in.con.ceiv.able.

I think that they all live in some huge habitrail some where until it is time to go to their new home.
Shirley, your insight is profound...and I have hamsters that are the exception that prove the rule, and thus, scientifically speaking, elevate your hypothesis to the status of theory.

We have kept Campbell's Russian Dwarf Hamsters (Phodopus campbelli) (http://www.hamsters-uk.org/hamster/c_normal.html) for six years now - not the same ones, but some of them do live for 21/2 years - and most of them spend all their waking hours (not a lot of those, actually) scuttling along their tubes, spinning on their wheels and remembering to be considerate to the next user when using the hamster toilet closet (http://www.dealsmart.co.uk/product/5001025/Hamster_Toilet_Closet.php). (I think you'd call it "hamster bathroom".)

However, one particular couple (the mum is called Ickings Icks and the dad Mouthy Mouth, AKA Leaper (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=289806&highlight=hamster) ) yearn to return to the place they belong. Not content with leaping out of the cage via the top flap, Mouthy has spent the last few months chewing through the plastic plug thingie on the side of the cage which you use if you don't want to have yet another tube sticking out of your cage.

This morning my wife woke me up to tell me that Ickings and Mouthy had escaped and had made a dash for freedom. It's the first time she has ever taken an interest in these animals - in fact, she amazed me by extending her arms and revealing that she had one hamster safely ensconced in each hand. She had never so much as touched them before. She was so animated as she joyously repeated how these little creatures wanted to return to their natural habitat.

I put them back in their cage, telling Ickings to look after her three surviving babies, and made my way to work. Imagine my surprise then when the first thread I came across was this one.

I know that hamsters are remarkably similar to humans physiologically and neurologically (http://www.newstarget.com/z001619.html) (see paragraph 3), but is Someone trying to tell me something?

[minor7flat5]

It is at this point where I feel obligated to post my hard-won photos of the feral guinea pigs of central Brazil...

Found in the small town of Conceição de Macabu, a hundred or so miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro, it was very risky and dangerous to approach them as closely as we did, as you'll appreciate our efforts and the risks involved when you see these photos (makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck just thinking about it). You can even see them in their natural dwellings.

Brazilian guinea pigs 1 (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/minor7flat5/brazil-guinea1.jpg)
Brazilian guinea pigs 2 (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/minor7flat5/brazil-guinea2.jpg)
Brazilian guinea pigs 3 (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/minor7flat5/brazil-guinea3.jpg)

All kidding aside, they really do live on that little island. Town Hall gave the main square a makeover a few years ago, including a nice little carp pond with a guinea pig island in the middle for the kids. The animals live their entire lives in the warm Brazilian climate on the island and multiply quite nicely.

[Bryan Ekers]

And of course, this compels me to relate yet another bizarre childhood memory. Sometime in the late seventies or early eighties, my dad took me to the Agrignon Zoo. They must have been feeling the budget crunch even then, because one of their displays was a cage of gerbils. In the center of the cage, abandoned like some kind of crack baby, was a hairless newborn, flailing about blindly like Democracts at a confirmation hearing. The newborn eventually rolled off its back and settled on unsteady feet and an adult hopped over, casually pushed him onto his back again, then hopped back to into the corner, probably to snigger with his fellow child-abusing drinking buddies. The newborn recommenced flailing, showing the blind determination of Tucker Carlson trying to get a joke out of Jon Stewart, and had just barely succeeded when another adult (probably the same one - they all look alike) walked up and pushed him over again. I was fascinated by the injustice of it all when my own father told me to hurry up and I had to move on.

[Shirley Ujest]

Minor7 Your pictures are worthy of National Geographic. It is truly amazing how their life resembles not only our social structure, but that of garden gnomes, only on their own private island. Are there sharks with laser beams in the moat?

[jester21]

back in 1991... Lansing Capital Airport had a large box filled with hampsters....

why? i don't know... it was probably being sent somewhere...

however, it was a cardboard box....

And hampsters being hampsters.... ate a hole through it and ran for freedom! :)

the airport then set up a contest for kids: Come in and search the place... find a hampster.. you get to keep it! :cool:


I read about it in the USA Today while i was in Basic Training. :)