LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Hamster: Syrian Hamster
built 183 days ago
The Syrian Hamster is a solitary animal, and must be kept singly after age of 8–10 weeks. If kept together any longer than that, vicious fighting will break out resulting in either serious injury or death.
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Like most members of the subfamily, the Syrian Hamster has expandable cheek pouches, which extend from its cheeks to its shoulders. In the wild, hamsters are larder hoarders they use their cheek pouches to transport food to their burrows. Their name in the local Arabic dialect where they were found translates to "father of saddlebags" due to the remarkable amount of storage space in their cheek pouches. If food is plentiful, they will store it in large amounts--it has been reported that 25 kg of grain was found in the burrow of a single hamster.
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It is thought that the Syrian Hamster had been extinct in its natural environment 'Syria,' since the 1980s. Until a population was found in Kilis, on the Turkish Syrian border in the year 2000, and still inhabit the Haurân mountains, south of Damascus.
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The Syrian Hamster naturally likes to be alone, and must be kept alone after the age of 9–10 weeks. If kept together any longer than that, they become territorial and fighting will result.
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The Syrian hamster was first found in the Mount Aleppo area of Syria in 1839. In 1880 James Skene brought the first lot of live Syrians to the United Kingdom where he bred them. But they didn't attract much interest so eventually they all died. In 1930 a scientist went out to Syria looking for these hamsters, where he found a mother and her eleven pups. But they started to have problems, one pup was killed by the mother and some escaped which left them with the mother and just three pups. These hamsters were bred and some years later found their way to a London Zoo where they were bred and then made their way into the british pet market in the 1940's.
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In 1930, Carlos Alfonso, a Puerto Rican zoologist and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, captured a mother hamster and her litter of pups in the Syrian desert. By the time he got back to his lab, most had died or escaped. The remaining three hamsters were given to his university, where they were successfully bred. Because they were a bit bigger than the ones Waterhouse found, they were named Mesocricetus auratus. Mesocricetus auratus is the currently accepted scientific name of the Syrian Hamster.
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Syrian Hamster