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Snake 'Befriends' Snack Hamster
BBC News ^ | July 26h 2009

Posted on 07/26/2009 6:59:28 PM PDT by Steelfish

Snake 'befriends' snack hamster

Aochan, the snake 'seems to enjoy' being with Gohan, the hamster A rodent-eating snake and a hamster have developed an unusual bond at a zoo in the Japanese capital, Tokyo.

[Pic in URL]

Their relationship began in October last year, when zookeepers presented the hamster to the snake as a meal.

The rat snake, however, refused to eat the rodent. The two now share a cage, and the hamster sometimes falls asleep sitting on top of his natural foe.

"I have never seen anything like it," a zookeeper at the Mutsugoro Okoku zoo told the Associated Press News agency.

The hamster was initially offered to Aochan, the two-year-old rat snake, because it was refusing to eat frozen mice. As a joke, the zookeeper said they named the hamster Gohan - the Japanese word for meal.

"I don't think there's any danger. Aochan seems to enjoy Gohan's company very much," said zookeeper Kazuya Yamamoto. The apparent friendship between the snake and hamster is one of many reported bonds spanning the divide between predator and prey.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: aochan; gohan; hamster; japan; mutsugoro; mutsugorookoku; okoku; snake; tokyo; zoo
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To: Steelfish

Remember this oldie thread from FR about a Cambodian boy and his python pet? Check out the pics....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1973731/posts


21 posted on 07/26/2009 8:18:52 PM PDT by tflabo (Truth or Tyranny)
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To: Steelfish

Amity ends DECEMBER 7th.
/s/ The Snake


22 posted on 07/26/2009 8:23:10 PM PDT by Tuketu (CASE CLOSED)
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To: Steelfish

Gohan?

23 posted on 07/26/2009 8:25:48 PM PDT by Future Snake Eater ("Get out of the boat and walk on the water with us!”--Sen. Joe Biden)
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To: HighlyOpinionated

All’s well until the zookeepers stop feeding the snake. Hunger trumps all battle plans.


24 posted on 07/26/2009 8:34:30 PM PDT by Steelfish
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To: bareford101

25 posted on 07/26/2009 8:48:03 PM PDT by dr_lew
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To: Steelfish

We got a mouse for our corn snake last winter, and she wouldn’t eat it. We named it “Lunch,” and let her keep it as a pet for a few days, but it was so darned noisy, tearing up the papers and gnawing at the rocks, that we put it out in the woods for a hungry cat or coyote.


26 posted on 07/27/2009 7:46:49 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Catz bites can be nasti. Embrace your irascible appetite!)
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To: HighlyOpinionated

“I am not the hamster you want to eat”


27 posted on 07/27/2009 8:02:09 AM PDT by Oztrich Boy (In Soviet Russia, Sarah Palin's house can see YOU)
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