http://www.cracked.com/article_19463_5-real-animal-friendships-straight-out-disney-movie.html
[URL="http://www.cracked.com/article_19463_5-real-animal-friendships-straight-out-disney-movie.html#ixzz1ZmPpqBGx"]
Hamsters, like most rodents, are the meal of choice for many snakes. So much so, in fact, that escaped snakes have been caught in hamster cages because their freshly gained hamster-shaped belly lump prevented them from slithering back out between the bars. Snakes are so intoxicated by the mere thought of sweet hamster cutlets that they will happily ignore their surroundings and neglect their personal freedom just to fill their bellies.
[/URL][URL="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10903211/ns/world_news-weird_news/t/hamster-snake-best-friends-tokyo-zoo/"]And then there's Japan.
So they took a female dwarf hamster, dropped her into Aochan's cage and waited for nature to take its course. But instead of the usual panicked squeak-gulp-burp course of events, the hamster was totally cool with the yard-long hamster-eating snake whose home it had been dropped into. It padded straight to Aochan, who watched with interest. Then it climbed onto his back, curled happily into a ball and went to sleep.
Then pulled the blanket over his head and gave him a Dutch Oven.
We feel it's worth noting that Aochan wasn't just a random snake that likes to eat rodents. During this first meeting, he was a starving snake that hadn't eaten for weeks. The situation was, from a biological standpoint, not unlike offering a five-course meal to a starving man, only to watch him turn it down because he wanted to hang out with the potatoes. There wasn't anything biologically wrong with Aochan either -- when it became apparent that he wasn't going to eat the hamster, the zoo staff gingerly tried again with frozen mice, and he gulped them down no problem.
He was literally starving, sure. But more importantly, he was starved for friendship.
[/URL]
[URL="http://www.cracked.com/article_19463_5-real-animal-friendships-straight-out-disney-movie.html#ixzz1ZmPpqBGx"]
Hamsters, like most rodents, are the meal of choice for many snakes. So much so, in fact, that escaped snakes have been caught in hamster cages because their freshly gained hamster-shaped belly lump prevented them from slithering back out between the bars. Snakes are so intoxicated by the mere thought of sweet hamster cutlets that they will happily ignore their surroundings and neglect their personal freedom just to fill their bellies.
[/URL][URL="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10903211/ns/world_news-weird_news/t/hamster-snake-best-friends-tokyo-zoo/"]And then there's Japan.
Aochan is a Japanese rat snake held at a Tokyo zoo. As the name suggests, these particular snakes are even more prone to rodent-related shenanigans than most. In that capacity, they are used by some farmers as a form of pest control because, hey, not everyone is a cat person. So it was a bit of a surprise when Aochan flat out refused to eat the frozen mice commonly fed to captive snakes. The zoo staff scratched their heads at this surprising turn of events, until one of them had a revelation: Of course, the snake wants fresh meat!So they took a female dwarf hamster, dropped her into Aochan's cage and waited for nature to take its course. But instead of the usual panicked squeak-gulp-burp course of events, the hamster was totally cool with the yard-long hamster-eating snake whose home it had been dropped into. It padded straight to Aochan, who watched with interest. Then it climbed onto his back, curled happily into a ball and went to sleep.
Then pulled the blanket over his head and gave him a Dutch Oven.
Did Aochan fly into a mindless rage, seeing his pride as a rat snake being torn to shreds by this overtly friendly furball? Nope, he was totally OK with it, and they have been best friends ever since.We feel it's worth noting that Aochan wasn't just a random snake that likes to eat rodents. During this first meeting, he was a starving snake that hadn't eaten for weeks. The situation was, from a biological standpoint, not unlike offering a five-course meal to a starving man, only to watch him turn it down because he wanted to hang out with the potatoes. There wasn't anything biologically wrong with Aochan either -- when it became apparent that he wasn't going to eat the hamster, the zoo staff gingerly tried again with frozen mice, and he gulped them down no problem.
He was literally starving, sure. But more importantly, he was starved for friendship.
There's no viable explanation for the relationship of the snake and the hamster. The hamster just happens to be OK with snakes, and Aochan responds in turn. The snake really, really seems to like having the hamster around, despite the zookeepers' passive aggressive efforts to get the critter eaten (they named the hamster Gohan, which basically means "meal").[/URL]
