Posted on 01/18/2006 10:03:24 AM PST by freepatriot32
TOKYO - Gohan and Aochan make strange bedfellows: one's a 3.5-inch dwarf hamster; the other is a 120 yard-long rat snake. Zookeepers at Tokyo's Mutsugoro Okoku zoo presented the hamster _ whose name means "meal" in Japanese _ to Aochan as a tasty morsel in October, after the snake refused to eat frozen mice.
But instead of indulging, Aochan decided to make friends with the furry rodent, according to keeper Kazuya Yamamoto. The pair have shared a cage since.
"I've never seen anything like it. Gohan sometimes even climbs onto Aochan to take a nap on his back," Yamamoto said.
Aochan, a 2-year-old male Japanese rat snake, eventually developed an appetite for frozen rodents but has so far shown no signs of gobbling up Gohan _ despite her name.
"We named her Gohan as a joke," Yamamoto chuckled. "But I don't think there's any danger. Aochan seems to enjoy Gohan's company very much."
The Tokyo zoo also keeps a range of mostly livestock animals, and promotes "cross-breed interaction," according to Yamamoto.
But Gohan and Aochan's case was "was a complete accident," Yamamoto said.
"The snake is big enough to handle more than that hamster, easily."
When my family babysat snakes we gave one a mouse and ran. When we checked it out the next morning, the mouse had chewed through the snake's skull. After that it retired from its career in food services.
The hampster has been in there 3 months so far. The snake has shed prior, I'm sure.
A few years ago, the grandfather of a friend kept a big old barn owl as a pet in a cage. Once, as a special treat, he gave the owl a live chick for lunch. The lonely old owl mothered it instead. They finally had to remove it after it had grown too large for the cage. I think the chick went on to become Sunday dinner. LOL
The snake is saving the hamster ........ for later
A 360 foot long snake? That's longer than a football field.
Ahhhh, Aren't Bill and Hildabeast cute!
Classic photo ping.
One of these days, he's Gohan to be missing...
Why run? It just amounts to a squeak and a crunch! All the snakes my daughter and I had were caught wild, never had any problems with eating.
Anytime my mother in law was bugging me, I would say "Mary, time to feed the snakes". MIL out the door, no fail! We had a big yellow rat snake in the sofa springs one time, had to coax it out with a hair dryer. MIL always looked under the cushions before she would sit down.
The hamster should just shoot the snake and have over with it. It would make a nice wallet.
I wonder if they'll make as big a deal when that rat comes up missing?
Probably not.
This SO reminds me of the parable about the scorpian and the frog(?)
. . . as they both drown, the frog asks "Why did you sting me?"
. . . "Because I am a scorpian."
Why are you posting videos of Bill and Hillary's honeymoon?
During basic training in 1985, I told my country-boy tent-buddy that I wasn't afraid of snakes.
Later that night, while I was sleeping, he took his garter snake and gently placed it upon my neck, which he had been warming with his flashlight.
I felt something cold at my neck and, thinking it was my fart sack zipper, tugged at the offending object. When that garter snake coiled around my hand and wrist it took about .05 seconds to realize what it was. Given that the area had several breeds of rattlesnakes, I wasn't thinking about garter snakes.
I woke up the entire bivouac camp with my screaming ;)
For the next two hours, after word has spread, the entire camp (about 400 soldiers) would periodically break out into uproarious laughter.
When I was about 8, we had a cub scout meeting at my house, all the scouts got to see my mother throw a lawn edger like a spear, and decapitate a rattlesnake, from 20 feet away. Momma never will admit it was pure luck, but since she never had to repeat it, who can say?
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