European Hamsters

[Daisy]

The European Hamster​

The European hamster is the largest, and most endangered, species of hamster. With their charming and photogenic faces, they have captured the hearts of many, but that wasn’t always the case. The following series of posts will give an overview of their physical appearance, behaviour and living habits. They will also cover their relationship with humans, their critically endangered status, and the steps people are taking to protect them. Finally, I will share an account from the early 20th century of European hamsters kept as pets.

Above: A European hamster, in his characteristic pose, showing off his striking black belly. Source: Shutterstock.​

European hamsters are native to grassland and steppe regions ranging from Belgium to as far east as the western edge of Mongolia. They may also be found in green pockets of urban areas. In particular, there is a large population in Vienna Central Cemetery in Austria.

The European hamster is a handsome animal. They usually have rust-brown fur with white flashes on the cheeks and sides of the upper body, white feet, and a striking black belly, though there is some variety in their coloration. Rarely, an individual might even be entirely white or entirely black.

They are very similar in body structure to the Syrian hamster, but significantly larger. European hamsters are approximately the size of a guinea pig or a grey squirrel, being about 24cm long and typically weighing 350-450g. The females tend to be slightly smaller and lighter than the males. Their ears, one of their most endearing features, are also proportionally larger than Syrians’ ears.

Above: Fully grown male Syrian and European hamsters. Source: Clinical Anatomy of the European Hamster.​

Like other hamsters, they have cheek pouches which they use to carry large amounts of grain and other food for hoarding, and like Syrian and Chinese hamsters, they have scent glands on their hips which they use to mark their territory.

The zoologist Alfred Brehm reported in his Tierleben (a famous German encylopaedia of animals) that the hamsters have good eyesight, at least equally as good as their other senses. This sets them apart from most other hamster species which are considered to have poor eyesight. The hamsters are often pictured standing upright on their hind legs, looking alertly at something in the distance, or as Brehm (who in the course of this post you may detect has a strong dislike for the European hamster) prefers to describe, “glar[ing] at the object of its resentment, evidently quite ready for an opportunity of rushing at it and using its teeth on it.”

European hamsters are well-known for being naturally rather aggressive (to their own species and other species), which is one reason why many don’t consider them to make good pets, although there are accounts of them being tamed in a captive environment.

Brehm paints a fearsome picture of the hamsters, describing them as “ugly, sulky, and irritable… also very pugnacious.” Brehm’s picture may perhaps be exaggerated, but on the latter point, at least, he was correct. European hamsters will respond furiously to any actual or perceived threat, and will fight back tenaciously when attacked, even by much larger animals. Brehm reports that they will even attack horses and people unprovoked. BBC Wildlife more sympathetically describes them as “bolshy”.

European hamsters seem to be particularly vocal and are often described as growling when surprised or afraid. They will also grind and chatter their teeth as an aggressive gesture. They can jump a metre, or perhaps higher, despite their stocky build. You can see a brief clip of two hamsters fighting here.

 

[Daisy]

The hamsters live alone (aside from mothers with young pups) in elaborate burrow systems. They are excellent burrowers, using their front legs or even teeth to break apart hard clumps of earth before vigorously scraping and kicking it away from them with their back legs.

Their burrows always have at least two entrances, a fairly straight main entrance, and escape tunnels which are sloping or even vertical. A burrow has two sleeping chambers, one for winter which might be as deep as 2.5 metres, and one for summer which is usually about 30-60cm deep. The sleeping chambers are lined with straw and hay .A burrow will also have between one and five food storage chambers, and dead ends which function as toilet chambers. They diligently keep their burrows clean, and one of the tell-tale signs of a European hamster burrow is a pile of debris (such as empty seed husks) at the entrance.

You can view a partial diagram of a European hamster burrow here, and a more whimsical drawing on page 6 of this book.

A male hamster’s territory may be as large as eight hectares, but is usually more in the range of one or two hectares, with a female’s territory being smaller. Note: a hectare is 10,000 square metres, or an area equivalent to 100x100 metres.

Above: A European hamster in a burrow. Source: Shutterstock.​

In rural areas, the hamsters are elusive and are rarely seen in daylight. However, in urban areas such as, famously, Vienna Central Cemetery, they have become accustomed to humans and the noises of a city environment and are much bolder. They are regularly spotted by visitors to the cemetery. In the Further Reading section, you can find a link to a blog recounting one person’s experience with the hamsters, including many excellent photos.

 

[Daisy]

Like other hamsters, they hoard food, and their burrows may have between one and five food storage chambers. They use their cheek pouches to collect and transport up to 50 grams of food back to their burrow.

In September or October having hoarded enough food to see them through the winter, and having gained a large amount of body fat, the hamsters will prepare for hibernation. In a burrow chamber lined with straw, they will eat, and then curl up to enter torpor. Ice cold and rigid, with almost imperceptible breathing and heartbeat, they would easily be mistaken for dead. They wake up every few days to eat from their stores, before returning to torpor.

When in torpor, their metabolic rate drops drastically, which means they can survive with much less food. This enables them to survive through the winter when food may be very scarce. Note that although some pet hamsters are capable of going into torpor, for them it is very dangerous as they have lost the ability to wake up again safely.

The hamsters will wake up in March or April, having lost about half their body weight.

In April or May, the breeding season begins, and will continue until the end of August. European hamsters are strictly solitary, with the adults meeting only for mating. They have an unusual mating ritual. The female runs in a figure of eight, while the male follows, emitting an increasingly loud mating call, before they finally mate.

The female hamster is pregnant for about three weeks. She gives birth to an average of seven pups, which she nurses for about four weeks.

A female may raise two or three litters during a single breeding season, before the hibernation season begins again.

Young European hamsters. Source: Shutterstock.​

A European hamster’s natural lifespan in the absence of predation and other outdoor risks is four or five years, perhaps as long as eight years according to some sources, though in the wild they tend to only live a year or two. Up to 90% of hamsters will be killed by predators.

A European hamster’s diet consists mostly of plants, grains, seeds, and legumes, supplemented by small animals such as insects.

As well as the insects and grubs which all hamsters eat, European hamsters will even eat small birds, lizards, smaller rodents, and frogs.

They are opportunistic and adaptable animals, eating just about anything they can find. The hamsters living in Vienna Central Cemetery are even known to eat the wax from candles left by mourners as a source of dietary fat.

 

[Daisy]

Despite its ferocity, the European hamster has many predators, including foxes, birds of prey, polecats, and weasels, and domestic dogs and cats. In Brehm’s opinion, “it is really fortunate for humanity that the Hamster, the rapid increase of which gives it a prodigious power for evil, has so many enemies.” While this claim sounds hyperbolic, and likely is, it is true that European hamsters were in the past considered a significant threat to crop yields.

Considered a menace by farmers, the hamsters were intensively hunted, trapped, or even poisoned during much of the 20th century with the aim of eradicating them. Their pelts were used in clothing, and they were sometimes eaten. People would even collect the hoarded grains, which might amount to a dozen kilograms in a single burrow, wash them, and use them like any other grain.

Above: A European hamster balancing on an ear of corn. Source: Shutterstock​

The European hamster is now critically endangered. This is due partly to the hunting just mentioned, but also due to habitat loss and changes in agriculture.

Agriculture has evolved to become much more efficient. Modern machinery strips the fields right down to the ground, rather than leaving any stubble or small quantities or grain, which in the past were a food source for European hamsters (and other animals). Fields also tend to be ploughed immediately after harvest nowadays, which buries any food which might have remained, as well as removing the plants that would provide overhead cover and protect the hamsters from predation.

Another factor is agricultural monocropping. In the past, a field might have been used to grow multiple crops, or there might have been several small fields growing different crops within a particular area. Fields would be separated by hedgerows providing a habitat for many different plant and animal species. Nowadays it is common for very large areas of land to be dedicated to a single crop, especially corn. Often, the same crop is grown year after year. Heavy use of pesticides also eliminates other edible plants (i.e weeds) from the fields. This drastic decrease in biodiversity means the European hamsters have much less variety in their diets, resulting in nutritional deficiencies. Nutritional deficiencies can reduce fertility and increase the death rate of hamster pups. Corn also offers little overhead cover for the hamsters, increasing their risk of predation.

Urbanisation has also reduced the available habitat for European hamsters. The building of roads limits their movement, decreasing their chances of finding mates. Many hamsters are killed attempting to cross roads.

The reasons for the European hamster’s struggle for survival are not fully understood. Research using tracking implants indicates that they are going into hibernation too early, and emerging too late, which results in the females producing only one or two litters per year, instead of the three that are required to keep population levels stable. Researchers wonder whether this could be due to light pollution or lack of overhead cover deterring the hamsters from leaving their burrows when they normally would.

Once hated and persecuted, the European hamster is now the subject of intensive conservation efforts.

In several countries there are programs that release captive-bred hamsters into the wild. They fortunately breed well in captivity, though once released are very susceptible to predators. Wild hamsters also are less successful in reproduction than captive ones.

In some areas, farmers are incentivised to leave crops unharvested to provide food for the hamsters. They might also be encouraged or incentivised to mix their main crops with a more nutritious crop for the hamsters, such as soy, to border their fields with sunflowers, alfalfa, or rapeseed, or to modify their pesticide use and ploughing practices.

These practices have stabilised European hamster populations in many areas, but there is still much work to be done when it comes to increasing numbers.

Above: I'm not quite sure what this hamster is doing, but it's very cute! Source: Shutterstock.​

Sources used for this article​

• BBC Wildlife, 2013, “Help For Hamsters.”
• Brehm, Alfred E, 1895, Brehm's Life of Animals, Vol. 1: A Complete Natural History for Popular Home Instruction and for the Use of Schools
• Chiu, Lynn, May 12 2023, “Wildlife Watching in Vienna Cemeteries” Rudolphina
• Dell, Christine, July 16 2020, “World's rarest wild hamster is now critically endangered” National Geographic
• “European Hamster”, Zoo Berlin, accessed February 20, 2024
• Flamand, Anna, Nancy Rebout, Camille Bordes, Lauréline Guinnefollau, Matthieu Bergès, Fanny Ajak, Carina Siutz, Eva Millesi, Christiane Weber, and Odile Petit, 2019, “Hamsters in the city: A study on the behaviour of a population of common hamsters (Cricetus cricetus) in urban environment”, PLoS ONE 14 (11)
• Gepma, “Le Grand Hamster, un animal pas si commun.” Alister
• Lippert, Sierra, “ADW: Cricetus cricetus: INFORMATION”, Animal Diversity Web, accessed February 20, 2024
• Rauber, Paul, “Wild Hamsters of Alsace”, Sierra Club, accessed February 20, 2024
• Reznik, Gerd, Hildegard Reznik-Schüller, and Ulrich Mohr, 1979, Clinical Anatomy of the European Hamster: Cricetus Cricetus, L.
• Tissier, Mathilde L., Yves Handrich, Odeline Dallongeville, Jean-Patrice Robin, and Caroline Habold, 2017, “Diets derived from maize monoculture cause maternal infanticides in the endangered European hamster due to a vitamin B3 deficiency”, Proceedings of the Royal Society B 284 (1847)

Further Reading/Watching​

European hamsters at the Central Cemetery in Vienna, wildlife-travel.com, - A traveller’s account of spotting European hamsters in Vienna, with many excellent photos.

Releasing European hamster to nature - Full movie with Ukrainian subtitles, youtube.com, - subtitles are in Ukrainian, but footage shows the release of European hamsters into the wild, including what seems to be a rare black hamster.

Wild Hamsters Thriving in Viennese Graveyards | Coexistence | BBC Earth, youtube.com, - A filmmaker and zoologist visits the hamsters of Vienna.

The European hamster (Cricetus cricetus) in captivity: keeping and breeding experience (terioshkola.org.ua) - this is a research paper in Ukrainian, but it contains some photos of hamsters interacting with people, and there may be some interesting details if you are willing to Google Translate it.

 

[Daisy]

An account of European hamsters kept as pets​

In this article (translated from German), Elisabeth Naundorff, presumably the young girl in the photos, writes about her experiences keeping five wild-caught European hamsters as pets. She also wrote other articles for Zeitschrift für Säugetiorkunde about keeping a badger, a bat, and dormice as pets.

Naundorff presents these hamsters as intelligent and interactive pets, able to be tamed and taught tricks despite initial aggression and the potential to inflict serious injury.

She mentions keeping two hamsters as a pair, apparently successfully. This is surprising, given that we now know European hamsters to be strictly solitary the same as Syrians, though it should be noted that she wasn’t able to keep these hamsters for their entire lifespan and they may have fought later in their lives.

Source: Zeitschrift für Säugetierkunde, Bd. III, 1928, Biodiversity Heritage Library
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Zeitschrift für Säugetiorkunde [Journal of mammalian science], Volume III, 1928

The hamster as a housemate​

By Elisabeth Naundorff (Dresden)

Although it is well known that the hamster can be tamed, the many pleasant characteristics of this rodent have received little attention. He is considered a grumpy, even vicious fellow who is hardly worth the effort of taming. However, I have never owned a rodent that gave me more joy than these funny little guys.

Mind you, taming a hamster requires a lot of patience; at first the hamster will attack any object presented to him and will often hang on so hard, that he can be lifted up. If you gently rub his back while he is running, he immediately throws himself into an attack position, while growling [?] and grinding his teeth, and only calms down when no attacker materialises. Out of the five hamsters I have owned, almost all reacted like this. I always had young animals, three female and one male, one of which I had to give away because its aggression frightened my relatives and lasted an unusually long time. Even young hamsters can cause serious injuries: my thumbnail was bitten through even through a padded leather glove. You need to be careful with them. But after a few weeks they all learned that when a carrot, or similar harmless and edible object was held in front of them, there was no danger.

In contrast to other rodents, the hamster is easy to coax with treats. Since he doesn't just eat, but fills his cheek pouches with tireless zeal*, his appetite is unlimited. When their cheek pouches were filled to maximum capacity, my hamsters demanded to be carried back to their cage. They showed me this by walking up my arm onto my shoulder. Since I always carried them on my shoulder, they all adopted this behaviour. In their cage, their cheek pouches were quickly emptied into their hoard - I always provided a dense nest of hay for a hiding place - then the hamsters would appear again and ask for a new ration.

They all learned to “stand like a person” [i.e on two legs] similar to what Wilhelm Bartels described in Brehm**. In any case, whenever there is a noise, they stand up on their hind legs, a position in which they also eat and groom themselves. The latter happens very often; they have a strong instinct for cleanliness. They are completely odourless, only do their business in the same corner of the cage, and never urinate or defecate when you handle them. They become restless like a cat and demand to be carried away when they feel the need.

​

My first hamster “Nuppi” begging for a cherry in one photograph and shown with bulging cheek pouches in the other.

Sometimes I tied a ribbon around his [Nuppi’s] neck and took him for a walk in the garden. He never tried to dig, but galloped to a pile of sand in which the children had built a tunnel system with multiple entrances. He liked to slip in and out of these.

“Nickel”, my second hamster, had a strange fondness for inedible objects. He stuffed into his cheek pouches whatever he found, and whatever fit: erasers, buttons, bits of cloth, especially ribbons. He took ribbons whenever he could find them. He pulled the hair bows out of little girls' hair and stuffed them into his pouches, and it was very funny to see the difficulty he had when the ribbon was longer than would fit into his pouch, and now lay annoyingly in his little mouth, so it had to be pulled in and out and rearranged again and again. I encouraged this habit, as it made him look very funny, and before my “hamster demonstration” I would have him stuff a long ribbon into his pouch before I showed him off, holding the end of the ribbon. I would put him on the table and pull out the ribbon, to the annoyance of the hamster, who tried in vain to keep it in and, as soon as I let go, hurriedly stuffed the whole thing back in. For the second “trick,” I had hung treats on the chain of the gas lamp for him so often that upon a barely noticeable hand gesture, he would stand up and pull the chain down towards him. Then followed “playing dead”: lying on his back until he was allowed to get up at a signal from my hand. All my other hamsters also learned this trick. Finally, when Nickel's cheek pockets were stuffed with treats and I saw that he wanted to leave, I sat down somewhere at the table and called him, whereupon he immediately found me and leapt onto my lap before climbing onto my shoulder. He would always recognise me among everyone present at a table and never went to anyone but me.

​

My hamster pair “Lili-Put” [above] proved to me that hamsters can also be gentle and shy by nature. They were shy and good-natured right from the start, even though they had just been captured, and only bit when they were frightened. But they were also less intelligent and more boring than their more pugnacious counterparts. Their main delight was digging, which I allowed them to do every day in a box full of earth or in the garden - but there only tied to a ribbon, or they wouldn't come back. Large chunks of soil were crushed with their teeth, their front legs scraped the soil under their bellies, and their hind legs kicked it away, all at great speed. I noticed how insensitive the corneas of their eyes must be: bits of earth in their eyes didn't seem to bother them at all. The two always got along excellently with each other.

Unfortunately, I had to give them away before I could start breeding either of them.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*The German word used here is Sammelwut, which has no exact translation in English, but refers to a mania or frenzy for collecting or hoarding something, a very useful word when discussing hamsters!

**Despite a lot of digging, I am unsure who Wilhelm Bartels was. Brehm probably refers to Brehm’s Tierleben, a popular German encyclopaedia of animals.

 

[Socks Mum]

The European Hamster​

The European hamster is the largest, and most endangered, species of hamster. With their charming and photogenic faces, they have captured the hearts of many, but that wasn’t always the case. The following series of posts will give an overview of their physical appearance, behaviour and living habits. They will also cover their relationship with humans, their critically endangered status, and the steps people are taking to protect them. Finally, I will share an account from the early 20th century of European hamsters kept as pets.

View attachment 6184
Above: A European hamster, in his characteristic pose, showing off his striking black belly. Source: Shutterstock.​

European hamsters are native to grassland and steppe regions ranging from Belgium to as far east as the western edge of Mongolia. They may also be found in green pockets of urban areas. In particular, there is a large population in Vienna Central Cemetery in Austria.

The European hamster is a handsome animal. They usually have rust-brown fur with white flashes on the cheeks and sides of the upper body, white feet, and a striking black belly, though there is some variety in their coloration. Rarely, an individual might even be entirely white or entirely black.

They are very similar in body structure to the Syrian hamster, but significantly larger. European hamsters are approximately the size of a guinea pig or a grey squirrel, being about 24cm long and typically weighing 350-450g. The females tend to be slightly smaller and lighter than the males. Their ears, one of their most endearing features, are also proportionally larger than Syrians’ ears.

View attachment 6185
Above: Fully grown male Syrian and European hamsters. Source: Clinical Anatomy of the European Hamster.​

Like other hamsters, they have cheek pouches which they use to carry large amounts of grain and other food for hoarding, and like Syrian and Chinese hamsters, they have scent glands on their hips which they use to mark their territory.

The zoologist Alfred Brehm reported in his Tierleben (a famous German encylopaedia of animals) that the hamsters have good eyesight, at least equally as good as their other senses. This sets them apart from most other hamster species which are considered to have poor eyesight. The hamsters are often pictured standing upright on their hind legs, looking alertly at something in the distance, or as Brehm (who in the course of this post you may detect has a strong dislike for the European hamster) prefers to describe, “glar[ing] at the object of its resentment, evidently quite ready for an opportunity of rushing at it and using its teeth on it.”

European hamsters are well-known for being naturally rather aggressive (to their own species and other species), which is one reason why many don’t consider them to make good pets, although there are accounts of them being tamed in a captive environment.

Brehm paints a fearsome picture of the hamsters, describing them as “ugly, sulky, and irritable… also very pugnacious.” Brehm’s picture may perhaps be exaggerated, but on the latter point, at least, he was correct. European hamsters will respond furiously to any actual or perceived threat, and will fight back tenaciously when attacked, even by much larger animals. Brehm reports that they will even attack horses and people unprovoked. BBC Wildlife more sympathetically describes them as “bolshy”.

European hamsters seem to be particularly vocal and are often described as growling when surprised or afraid. They will also grind and chatter their teeth as an aggressive gesture. They can jump a metre, or perhaps higher, despite their stocky build. You can see a brief clip of two hamsters fighting here.

Thank you for this absorbing info, amazing to see wild hamsters and how they have evolved in parts of Europe and more about their behaviour close up.

 

[Socks Mum]

Despite its ferocity, the European hamster has many predators, including foxes, birds of prey, polecats, and weasels, and domestic dogs and cats. In Brehm’s opinion, “it is really fortunate for humanity that the Hamster, the rapid increase of which gives it a prodigious power for evil, has so many enemies.” While this claim sounds hyperbolic, and likely is, it is true that European hamsters were in the past considered a significant threat to crop yields.

Considered a menace by farmers, the hamsters were intensively hunted, trapped, or even poisoned during much of the 20th century with the aim of eradicating them. Their pelts were used in clothing, and they were sometimes eaten. People would even collect the hoarded grains, which might amount to a dozen kilograms in a single burrow, wash them, and use them like any other grain.

View attachment 6188
Above: A European hamster balancing on an ear of corn. Source: Shutterstock​

The European hamster is now critically endangered. This is due partly to the hunting just mentioned, but also due to habitat loss and changes in agriculture.

Agriculture has evolved to become much more efficient. Modern machinery strips the fields right down to the ground, rather than leaving any stubble or small quantities or grain, which in the past were a food source for European hamsters (and other animals). Fields also tend to be ploughed immediately after harvest nowadays, which buries any food which might have remained, as well as removing the plants that would provide overhead cover and protect the hamsters from predation.

Another factor is agricultural monocropping. In the past, a field might have been used to grow multiple crops, or there might have been several small fields growing different crops within a particular area. Fields would be separated by hedgerows providing a habitat for many different plant and animal species. Nowadays it is common for very large areas of land to be dedicated to a single crop, especially corn. Often, the same crop is grown year after year. Heavy use of pesticides also eliminates other edible plants (i.e weeds) from the fields. This drastic decrease in biodiversity means the European hamsters have much less variety in their diets, resulting in nutritional deficiencies. Nutritional deficiencies can reduce fertility and increase the death rate of hamster pups. Corn also offers little overhead cover for the hamsters, increasing their risk of predation.

Urbanisation has also reduced the available habitat for European hamsters. The building of roads limits their movement, decreasing their chances of finding mates. Many hamsters are killed attempting to cross roads.

The reasons for the European hamster’s struggle for survival are not fully understood. Research using tracking implants indicates that they are going into hibernation too early, and emerging too late, which results in the females producing only one or two litters per year, instead of the three that are required to keep population levels stable. Researchers wonder whether this could be due to light pollution or lack of overhead cover deterring the hamsters from leaving their burrows when they normally would.

Once hated and persecuted, the European hamster is now the subject of intensive conservation efforts.

In several countries there are programs that release captive-bred hamsters into the wild. They fortunately breed well in captivity, though once released are very susceptible to predators. Wild hamsters also are less successful in reproduction than captive ones.

In some areas, farmers are incentivised to leave crops unharvested to provide food for the hamsters. They might also be encouraged or incentivised to mix their main crops with a more nutritious crop for the hamsters, such as soy, to border their fields with sunflowers, alfalfa, or rapeseed, or to modify their pesticide use and ploughing practices.

These practices have stabilised European hamster populations in many areas, but there is still much work to be done when it comes to increasing numbers.

View attachment 6189
Above: I'm not quite sure what this hamster is doing, but it's very cute! Source: Shutterstock.​

Sources used for this article​

• BBC Wildlife, 2013, “Help For Hamsters.”
• Brehm, Alfred E, 1895, Brehm's Life of Animals, Vol. 1: A Complete Natural History for Popular Home Instruction and for the Use of Schools
• Chiu, Lynn, May 12 2023, “Wildlife Watching in Vienna Cemeteries” Rudolphina
• Dell, Christine, July 16 2020, “World's rarest wild hamster is now critically endangered” National Geographic
• “European Hamster”, Zoo Berlin, accessed February 20, 2024
• Flamand, Anna, Nancy Rebout, Camille Bordes, Lauréline Guinnefollau, Matthieu Bergès, Fanny Ajak, Carina Siutz, Eva Millesi, Christiane Weber, and Odile Petit, 2019, “Hamsters in the city: A study on the behaviour of a population of common hamsters (Cricetus cricetus) in urban environment”, PLoS ONE 14 (11)
• Gepma, “Le Grand Hamster, un animal pas si commun.” Alister
• Lippert, Sierra, “ADW: Cricetus cricetus: INFORMATION”, Animal Diversity Web, accessed February 20, 2024
• Rauber, Paul, “Wild Hamsters of Alsace”, Sierra Club, accessed February 20, 2024
• Reznik, Gerd, Hildegard Reznik-Schüller, and Ulrich Mohr, 1979, Clinical Anatomy of the European Hamster: Cricetus Cricetus, L.
• Tissier, Mathilde L., Yves Handrich, Odeline Dallongeville, Jean-Patrice Robin, and Caroline Habold, 2017, “Diets derived from maize monoculture cause maternal infanticides in the endangered European hamster due to a vitamin B3 deficiency”, Proceedings of the Royal Society B 284 (1847)

Further Reading/Watching​

European hamsters at the Central Cemetery in Vienna, wildlife-travel.com, - A traveller’s account of spotting European hamsters in Vienna, with many excellent photos.

Releasing European hamster to nature - Full movie with Ukrainian subtitles, youtube.com, - subtitles are in Ukrainian, but footage shows the release of European hamsters into the wild, including what seems to be a rare black hamster.

Wild Hamsters Thriving in Viennese Graveyards | Coexistence | BBC Earth, youtube.com, - A filmmaker and zoologist visits the hamsters of Vienna.

The European hamster (Cricetus cricetus) in captivity: keeping and breeding experience (terioshkola.org.ua) - this is a research paper in Ukrainian, but it contains some photos of hamsters interacting with people, and there may be some interesting details if you are willing to Google Translate it.

This is fantastic, thank you!

 

[Socks Mum]

An account of European hamsters kept as pets​

In this article (translated from German), Elisabeth Naundorff, presumably the young girl in the photos, writes about her experiences keeping five wild-caught European hamsters as pets. She also wrote other articles for Zeitschrift für Säugetiorkunde about keeping a badger, a bat, and dormice as pets.

Naundorff presents these hamsters as intelligent and interactive pets, able to be tamed and taught tricks despite initial aggression and the potential to inflict serious injury.

She mentions keeping two hamsters as a pair, apparently successfully. This is surprising, given that we now know European hamsters to be strictly solitary the same as Syrians, though it should be noted that she wasn’t able to keep these hamsters for their entire lifespan and they may have fought later in their lives.

Source: Zeitschrift für Säugetierkunde, Bd. III, 1928, Biodiversity Heritage Library
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Zeitschrift für Säugetiorkunde [Journal of mammalian science], Volume III, 1928

The hamster as a housemate​

By Elisabeth Naundorff (Dresden)

Although it is well known that the hamster can be tamed, the many pleasant characteristics of this rodent have received little attention. He is considered a grumpy, even vicious fellow who is hardly worth the effort of taming. However, I have never owned a rodent that gave me more joy than these funny little guys.

Mind you, taming a hamster requires a lot of patience; at first the hamster will attack any object presented to him and will often hang on so hard, that he can be lifted up. If you gently rub his back while he is running, he immediately throws himself into an attack position, while growling [?] and grinding his teeth, and only calms down when no attacker materialises. Out of the five hamsters I have owned, almost all reacted like this. I always had young animals, three female and one male, one of which I had to give away because its aggression frightened my relatives and lasted an unusually long time. Even young hamsters can cause serious injuries: my thumbnail was bitten through even through a padded leather glove. You need to be careful with them. But after a few weeks they all learned that when a carrot, or similar harmless and edible object was held in front of them, there was no danger.

In contrast to other rodents, the hamster is easy to coax with treats. Since he doesn't just eat, but fills his cheek pouches with tireless zeal*, his appetite is unlimited. When their cheek pouches were filled to maximum capacity, my hamsters demanded to be carried back to their cage. They showed me this by walking up my arm onto my shoulder. Since I always carried them on my shoulder, they all adopted this behaviour. In their cage, their cheek pouches were quickly emptied into their hoard - I always provided a dense nest of hay for a hiding place - then the hamsters would appear again and ask for a new ration.

They all learned to “stand like a person” [i.e on two legs] similar to what Wilhelm Bartels described in Brehm**. In any case, whenever there is a noise, they stand up on their hind legs, a position in which they also eat and groom themselves. The latter happens very often; they have a strong instinct for cleanliness. They are completely odourless, only do their business in the same corner of the cage, and never urinate or defecate when you handle them. They become restless like a cat and demand to be carried away when they feel the need.

View attachment 6190​

My first hamster “Nuppi” begging for a cherry in one photograph and shown with bulging cheek pouches in the other.

Sometimes I tied a ribbon around his [Nuppi’s] neck and took him for a walk in the garden. He never tried to dig, but galloped to a pile of sand in which the children had built a tunnel system with multiple entrances. He liked to slip in and out of these.

“Nickel”, my second hamster, had a strange fondness for inedible objects. He stuffed into his cheek pouches whatever he found, and whatever fit: erasers, buttons, bits of cloth, especially ribbons. He took ribbons whenever he could find them. He pulled the hair bows out of little girls' hair and stuffed them into his pouches, and it was very funny to see the difficulty he had when the ribbon was longer than would fit into his pouch, and now lay annoyingly in his little mouth, so it had to be pulled in and out and rearranged again and again. I encouraged this habit, as it made him look very funny, and before my “hamster demonstration” I would have him stuff a long ribbon into his pouch before I showed him off, holding the end of the ribbon. I would put him on the table and pull out the ribbon, to the annoyance of the hamster, who tried in vain to keep it in and, as soon as I let go, hurriedly stuffed the whole thing back in. For the second “trick,” I had hung treats on the chain of the gas lamp for him so often that upon a barely noticeable hand gesture, he would stand up and pull the chain down towards him. Then followed “playing dead”: lying on his back until he was allowed to get up at a signal from my hand. All my other hamsters also learned this trick. Finally, when Nickel's cheek pockets were stuffed with treats and I saw that he wanted to leave, I sat down somewhere at the table and called him, whereupon he immediately found me and leapt onto my lap before climbing onto my shoulder. He would always recognise me among everyone present at a table and never went to anyone but me.

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My hamster pair “Lili-Put” [above] proved to me that hamsters can also be gentle and shy by nature. They were shy and good-natured right from the start, even though they had just been captured, and only bit when they were frightened. But they were also less intelligent and more boring than their more pugnacious counterparts. Their main delight was digging, which I allowed them to do every day in a box full of earth or in the garden - but there only tied to a ribbon, or they wouldn't come back. Large chunks of soil were crushed with their teeth, their front legs scraped the soil under their bellies, and their hind legs kicked it away, all at great speed. I noticed how insensitive the corneas of their eyes must be: bits of earth in their eyes didn't seem to bother them at all. The two always got along excellently with each other.

Unfortunately, I had to give them away before I could start breeding either of them.
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*The German word used here is Sammelwut, which has no exact translation in English, but refers to a mania or frenzy for collecting or hoarding something, a very useful word when discussing hamsters!

**Despite a lot of digging, I am unsure who Wilhelm Bartels was. Brehm probably refers to Brehm’s Tierleben, a popular German encyclopaedia of animals.

The olive branch was carrots and such But the bite through a leather glove was severe. Hamsters are quite unique and it's great that efforts are being made to save them. They are doing what nature intended them to do, controlling monoculture and alien plants. Conflict with people is a huge misfortune.

 

[Maz]

It’s a wonderful article Daisy - really fascinating. I wonder if anyone keeps them as pets now in Germany or Belgium. I never thought of them as ferocious after seeing Julian Rads photos - he got quite close up sometimes! But maybe he didn’t make them feel threatened. They are wild animals though, with instincts. Pet hamsters can be ferocious if scared as well I suppose.

 

[Maz]

Also what fascinates me is they are so similar (apart from size) to the original golden Syrian hamsters - same markings and colourings virtually - apart from the black belly - yet from completely different parts of the world.

 

[Daisy]

It’s a wonderful article Daisy - really fascinating. I wonder if anyone keeps them as pets now in Germany or Belgium. I never thought of them as ferocious after seeing Julian Rads photos - he got quite close up sometimes! But maybe he didn’t make them feel threatened. They are wild animals though, with instincts. Pet hamsters can be ferocious if scared as well I suppose.

I think there are a few private individuals who have them, but not as pets as such. Mostly they're being kept in zoos and captive breeding facilities. I imagine it would be illegal to take one from the wild to keep as a pet.

I think Julian Rads photos are taken in a city where the hamsters tend to be more used to humans. People will even feed them by hand and the hamsters get used to that. In the country they are much more skittish and difficult to spot.

Yes, even Syrians can react quite aggressively if they are frightened. I've had a nasty bite from a surprised Syrian before, and if the hamster had been the size of a European hamster, I can easily see how it might have been a serious injury.

 

[Maz]

Goodness yes that would be quite a bite from a European Hamster!