Strong science popularization│Brother dei: Are you a hamster or a gopher?

Hello, your little cutie is online~

How about it, can you accurately say its name the first time?

Most people who work in biology or medicine have probably come across this thing, or at least their professional course teachers have certainly mentioned it. However, there are not many people who can really pronounce the name correctly. There has also been confusion in some professional books in China.

Opening up the long river of history

In 1839, British zoologist George Robert Waterhouse discovered a female mouse in Syria and named it Golden hamster, with the scientific name Cricetus auratus**.

In 1930, zoologist and professor at the University of Jerusalem Israel Aharoni captured a litter of wild mice in the suburbs of Aleppo, Syria. Three of the pups (one male and two females) were artificially bred and purified into experimental animals. They were named Syrian hamster, or Syrian hamster , with the scientific name Mesocricetus auratus. Their descendants gradually spread throughout the world.

Mesocricetus auratus (Syrian hamster) is slightly larger than Cricetus auratus (golden hamster). Because both are from Syria, scientists think they may be the same species.

The golden hamsters (Syrian hamsters) raised in China were first brought back by Professor Lan Chunlin in 1948 from the Hoopex Foundation Medical Research Institute in San Francisco, USA, with four female and eight male hamsters. After more than 70 years of closed breeding, they have become one of the important experimental animals for scientific research and testing in my country.

Golden hamster (Photographed by Xu Ping)

Image source: China Science Expo

Of course, the Chinese hamster (also known as Striped hamster; scientific name Cricetulus barabensis) is also bred as an experimental animal and is often used. It has few and large chromosomes (2n=22), most of which can be distinguished from each other and have clear locations. In particular, the Y chromosome is unique in morphology and is very easy to identify. It has no gallbladder, and its large intestine is half the length of the golden hamster, but its brain weight and testicles are nearly twice as heavy as those of the golden hamster. It is often used in diabetes research and is a good animal model for true diabetes.

Predecessor of Chinese hamster: wild black-lined hamster (cited from Luo Zexun et al., 2000)

Image source: China Science Expo

Animal Taxonomic Archives

Syrian Hamster – Cricetidae

Cricetinae

Mesocricetus

Mesocritus

EnglishGolden hamsters

However, it is often called "golden hamster"!

Its cousin, the Chinese hamster (also known as the black-striped hamster ), belongs to the genus Cricetulus (Rat-like hamsters) of the subfamily Cricetinae and is originally produced in China.

Chinese hamster Photographed by Experimental Animal Center of Shanxi Medical University

Opening up the long river of history again

In 1919, Chinese scholar Xie Enzeng used wild Chinese hamsters captured from the suburbs of Beijing for medical experiments.

In 1938, Zhang Changying and others began artificial breeding.

In 1948, Americans took 10 pairs of wild hamsters from North China and brought them back to the United States. They called the bred experimental animals Chinese hamsters.

However, in China it is often called the “Chinese mole”!

Gophers - an often glorified "pest"

In the animal taxonomy, the genus Nesokia, also known as Short-tailed bandicoot rat, is found in the family Muridae of the order Rodentia. There are two species in the world, the Indian bandicoot Nesokia indica, which is found in the eastern and southern parts of the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, China, and the southwestern part of the Turpan Basin.

Don’t be fooled by the cuteness of the groundhogs in cartoons. In fact, they are of the same group as the rats (such as the brown rat), Bandicota and Berulmys. They are large in size and are also one of the notorious pests!

Typical biological characteristics

Gopher - Big Guy

The average weight of an adult individual is 240g, with a long tail that is 12-14cm long (accounting for 2/3 of its body length), three longitudinal rows of dental processes on the chewing surface of the molars, and no cheek pouches in the mouth.

Hamster - Tiny

The average weight of an adult golden hamster is 150g, with a short tail of 1-3cm in length and a body length of 16-19cm. There are two longitudinal rows of dental processes on the chewing surfaces of the molars, and cheek pouches in the mouth .

The average weight of an adult Chinese hamster is 25-40g, with a short tail of 1-3cm in length and a body length of 10cm. There are two vertical rows of dental processes on the chewing surface of the molars, and cheek pouches in the mouth .

This cheek pouch can be said to be an important feature that distinguishes hamsters from other rodents.

Gophers basically live underground and have a strong ability to gnaw on plant roots, which can cause large areas of surface plants to die. They are good at digging holes and pushing soil, which leads to desertification and wind erosion of soil mounds. They are very harmful to natural grasslands and artificial grasslands. They are the "most wanted criminals" of meadows, grasslands and farmlands in desert and semi-desert areas!

In addition, "hamster" comes from the German word hamstern, which means storage and hoarding, which is exactly synonymous with the Chinese word "hamster".

Finally, take a look at the various hamsters that have become human pets.

Compare this vicious guy

Indian Ground Squirrel (William Thomas Blanford, 1876)

Image source: China Science Expo

Don't get their names wrong again.

(Some of the pictures in this article are from the Internet. If there is any inappropriateness, please contact us to delete them.)