Gohan?
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 ...
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
Amity ends DECEMBER 7th.
/s/ The Snake
Gohan?
All’s well until the zookeepers stop feeding the snake. Hunger trumps all battle plans.
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.
“I am not the hamster you want to eat”
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