The European hamster ( Cricetus cricetus), also known as the Eurasian hamster,
Description
The European hamster has brown dorsal fur with white patches. The chest and belly are black. The tail is short and furred. It is much larger than the
golden hamster (
Mesocricetus auratus) or
Phodopus (
Phodopus sp.), which are commonly kept as pets, and is the largest known species of
hamster. It weighs and can grow to long with a tail of . Its
dental formula is . In captivity, the European hamster has an unusually long lifespan for a rodent, living up to eight years.
Behaviour
The common hamster is a
Nocturnality or
crepuscular species. It lives in a complex
burrow system. It eats seeds,
, root vegetables, grasses and insects. It transports its food in its elastic
to the food storage chambers. The storage chambers may be quite large and on average contain of food, but exceptionally can be up to .
It hibernates between October and March. During this time, it wakes every five to seven days to feed from the storage chambers. They are usually
Sociality.
Breeding
The adults reach sexual maturity when they are about 43 days old and breed from early April to August. The
gestation period is 18–20 days and the size of the litter ranges from three to 15 young, which are
weaned when aged three weeks.
Distribution and habitat
It is typically found in low-lying
with soft
loam or
loess soils, although it may also inhabit meadows, gardens or hedges. It is found from
Belgium and
Alsace in the west, to
Russia in the east, and
Bulgaria in the south. A significant population is found in Vienna Central Cemetery in Austria.
Conservation
The Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Union's highest court, ruled in 2011 that France had failed to protect the European hamster.
The government would be subject to fines of up to $24.6 million if France did not adjust its agricultural and urbanisation policies sufficiently to protect it.
By 2014, France had started a captive-breeding programme, which aimed to release 500 European hamsters each year into fields that farmers were paid not to harvest.
In 2020, the European hamster was classified as critically endangered across its global range on the IUCN Red List. The reasons for its drastic decline are not fully understood. It has been linked especially to habitat loss due to intensive agricultural practices and the building of roads that fragment populations, and to climate change, the historical fur trapping and to pollution; even light pollution appears to significantly reduce local populations, unless counterbalanced by other factors. Agriculture, development, and persecution are thought to be the biggest threats to the species.
A significant benefit to existing conservation programs is that the European hamster breeds readily in captivity; captive breeding programs for the species exist in Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Ukraine and elsewhere.
External links
