The anatomy of hamster

The constitution of the hamster lets guess that he is an inveterate digger of the depths. Its cylindrical body has a graceful bone structure, which makes the animal extremely vulnerable to fractures.

Body and legs

Hamsters have a rather round silhouette, with short legs that seem to bend under the weight of the body. But they are very pretty and very efficient, when you see how fast and frequent the hamsters run.

Legs and toes: The front legs of the hamster are powerful and muscular, and have four toes and a rudimentary atrophied thumb. It is with these toes that the hamster digs in the ground, climbs or does pirouettes. The hind legs, which are weaker but have five well-formed toes, serve as "shovels" to throw back the earth that the hamster has scraped off, or as supports when climbing.

Abajoues

The jowls are characteristic of hamsters, which use them as real pockets. The animal collects and transports food in them. In the wild, it does not eat on the spot, but brings the food back to the nest, where it can eat without being disturbed and afraid to serve as prey in turn.

Compared to the body, the jowls are immense and extend from the mouth to the shoulders. They can contain a large volume. To empty them, the hamster rubs them back and forth.

The jowls: they are bags of skin, which open inside the lips and go up to the shoulders. They are used by the hamster primarily to carry food that it does not consume immediately. They are so large that when they are full, the body of the hamster doubles in volume. It can store up to 18 g of food. The jowls play no role in the digestion process. On the other hand, they can be a very useful means of defence: often, to impress an enemy, the hamster inflates them by filling them with air.

Teeth

Hamsters are rodents, which means that their incisors are constantly growing. They also have twelve molars with roots, but these stop growing. Hamsters need to have materials to gnaw on them at all times, in order to regularly wear out their incisors.

A powerful jaw: like almost all rodents, the hamster has 16 teeth, 2 incisors and 6 molars per jaw. The incisors are chisel-shaped and have no roots, so their growth is never complete. They file themselves when the hamster eats. The chewing muscles are particularly developed.

Eyes

Hamsters do not have good eyesight. But their eyes can see independently of each other because they are located on the sides of the head. This gives them a wide field of vision, but they see blurry up close and have difficulty judging distances and heights.

On the other hand, they see very well in the dark. Most domestic hamsters have dark brown eyes, but there are individuals with red eyes (albinos). Albinos often suffer from visual problems. Their retina has no pigments, so they are very sensitive to light. Exposure to intense light for a few hours can irreparably damage the retina.

Hamsters have relatively large, slightly prominent eyes as in most nocturnal animals. They are presbyopic and do not have particularly high visual acuity. But the lateral position of the eyes gives the hamster a good field of vision (about 110°), which allows it to spot its enemies in time.

Ears

The funnel-shaped ears are covered with hair to prevent sand and dirt from getting in when the hamster digs. They are very efficient and perceive very weak sounds. It is assumed that they can even hear ultrasound, which is totally inaudible to humans.

The hamster's hearing is very clear. It even most likely perceives ultrasound. On the other hand, hamsters startle when they hear high-pitched or squeaky sounds nearby, which almost always contain some ultrasound. In addition, hearing is very differentiated: all hamsters very quickly learn to distinguish the voice of the person who is taking care of them from that of other people.

healer. The ears are very mobile and point in several directions. When they need peace and quiet to sleep, their ears close up and fold back.

Nose

Hamsters have an excellent sense of smell. This is vital for them, because they live in a world of scents. Each animal has a unique scent. They recognize by smell friends, enemies, family, sexual partners and diseases. They mark the limits of their territory with scent markers, their urine and their droppings.

This way, rivals immediately know what they are talking about. The scent markers are secreted by a special gland in the middle of the belly.

The sense of smell: it is extraordinarily differentiated. The hamster lives in a world of smells. The good relations of a couple of hamsters can quickly turn into ferocious hostility if one animal is separated from the other, transported to another setting, stroked by unknown hands, or put in another hamster's cage. This must be recognized and care must be taken not to lose the group smell in animals that have gotten along well until now, if they are to be left together.

However, this group smell can be lost just by separating the animals by a fence, inside the same cage, because they no longer have the possibility to groom each other, nor to sleep nested against each other. It is then totally impossible to rehabilitate the females of the same litter to each other, we can do it for a couple, but it takes a lot of patience and many tries.

Vibrisses

The numerous vibrating nerves are equipped with sensitive nerves and are used for the orientation of the hamster. There are not only on the head, but also on the body and on the legs. Very sensitive, they allow the animal to register the slightest air movement and to repeat the obstacle.

In nature, this faculty is vital. Entering a small burrow with the vibrissae touching the walls, the hamster immediately knows that the passage is too narrow for him. If it remained stuck, it would become an easy prey.

The hamster orientates itself with the help of its vibrissae. They inform him about the presence of obstacles along the way, or about the passage through a narrow opening. They are excellent tactile organs.

Stomach

Another particularity, which the hamster shares with other rodents: it has a two-cavity stomach. Food is predigested in the "crop", the larger of the two cavities, and then dissolved in the stomach.