Hamsters

However, in the 1930s, three or four baby hamsters (some suggest it was as many as eleven individu- als), all from the same litter, were taken from the wild and successfully bred in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Some of their young were brought to Britain. By the 1940s, some were being kepts as pets in the United States. Though a few more wild hamsters were caught in 1971, 1978 and 1982, these animals did not form part of the colony from which our pet hamsters are derived. It is amazing to think that the millions of hamsters kept around the world, in all their varieties, are all descended from fewer than a dozen individuals and have only been pets for some 70 years.

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