Things are crazy in the Middle East right now. With all the attention that is being paid to the daily happenings in modern day Persia, how about a little pet history from that area of the world?

Hamsters were first discovered in Syria in 1830 when an Israeli Zoologist working in the Syrian desert found them burrowed into the sand and captured them. He brought three hamsters back to his lab and was successful in breeding them. Many years later, in 1839, they received their modern day name of the “Golden Hamster” by a British zoologist named George Waterhouse. All common household pet hamsters are descendents of the Syrian desert hamsters.

Hamsters are wonderful pets because of their cleanliness, their disease free nature and their quiet, friendly way.

• How to Properly Handle your Hamster
• Hamsters and Exercise
• Hamster Diseases – Mange

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 24th, 2006 at 4:55 pm and is filed under Pets General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.