奇速英语

仓鼠是如何成为可爱萌宠的？

In the spring of 1930, a biologist named Israel Aharoni went to Syria on a mission. He was searching for a rare golden mammal. Its name in Arabic translates as “Mr. Saddlebags.” Thanks to Aharoni, the little rodent (啮齿动物) with the big cheeks can now be found in many grade-school classrooms, running on a little wheel in a little cage. That’s right. Aharoni’s big find was the hamster.

Of course, Aharoni didn’t set out looking for a schoolchild’s pet, biologist Rob Dunn said. Dunn, an assistant professor at North Carolina State University, wrote about the hamster’s discovery in an article on Smithsonian.com. One of Aharoni’s colleagues, Saul Adler, thought the animal might be similar enough to humans to use for medical research. “Aharoni saw this as a chance to both to discover this creature in the wild and to bring them back to Adler so he could make major discoveries about humans,” Dunn says.

Following tips from local farmers, Aharoni tracked down a litter of 11 hamsters in a Syrian wheat field. He put the little family in a box, and trouble started immediately when the mother hamster ate one of her babies.

More troubles followed. There was more hamster cannibalism (同类相食), and five others escaped from their cage — never to be found. Finally, two of the remaining three hamsters started to produce young, an event praised as magic by their frustrated caretakers.

Those Adam-and-Eve hamsters produced 150 babies, Dunn says, and they started to travel abroad, sent between labs or via the coat pocket. Today, the hamsters you see in pet stores are most likely descendants of Aharoni’s litter.

Because these hamsters are so inbred (近亲的), they typically have heart disease similar to what humans suffer. Dunn says that makes them the most suitable research models. “They do matter to us in this unusual way,” Dunn says. “In addition to turning those wheels all around the world.”