What is a Golden Hamster?
Hamsters are small rodents that range from 5 to 8 inches, they have soft, thick fur that usually
comes in colors of brown, white, honey-brown and gray. They are most known for there expandible cheeks that are used to store
food in.
History of Golden Hamsters.
In 1836 a British zoologist George Robert Waterhouse reportedly found an elderly female hamster
in Syria, naming it Cricetus auratus, the Golden Hamster. The Syrian Hamster was then ignored by European science for the
next century. Around 1930, zoologist and Professor at the University of Jerusalem Israel Aharoni found a mother and litter
of hamsters in the Syrian desert. By the time he got back to his lab, most had died or escaped. The remaining hamsters were
given to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where they were successfully bred. They were a bit bigger than the ones Waterhouse
found, so they were named Mesocricetus auratus, although they were probably the same species. Mesocricetus auratus is the
currently accepted scientific name of Syrian Hamsters.
