With Enemies Like These...

Oh, I am so naming my new band Snack Hamster.

Snake 'befriends' snack hamster.

A rodent-eating snake and a hamster have developed an unusual bond at a zoo in the Japanese capital, Tokyo.

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, the Associated Press news agency reports.

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," zookeeper Kazuya Yamamoto told the Associated Press news agency.

The apparent friendship between the snake and hamster is one of many reported bonds spanning the divide between predator and prey.

If that is not a classic closing sentence, I don't know what is. Har.

Why, just yesterday I thought I saw Sam Alito walking hand-in-hand w/ my reproductive rights, tootling along just as happy as a clam. I think he was glowing and whispering sweet-nothings into my poor, unsuspecting reproductive rights' ear. Just another day in Pollyanna's World!

Comments

[jo anne]

that IS classic. thanks for posting the link!

[Violet Socks]

This unholy snake-hamster alliance scares the bejeesus out of me. And thanks for not posting a picture. Snakes scare the bejeesus out of me, period.

The Alito thing is alarming too. Snakes are always scary.

[Alicia]

Love it!

[ae]

Hi, jo anne. Welcome and you're welcome!

Violet, no pix of snakes because db hates them, too. (And I mean both reptilian varieties. Ha.)

The absurd is much loved 'round these parts, Alicia! Enjoy!