Two of a kind, just two of a... not really.
TOKYO - Gohan and Aochan make strange bedfellows: one's a 3.5-inch dwarf hamster; the other is a four-foot 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.
(Via the excellent MYT)
Savannah, on Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 10:30 AM:
This is really fascinating to me, because Aochan is not a mammal. He's a reptile. Reptiles eat their own young. It is amazing to me that a reptile would form what appears to be a bond of companionship--and a long-term one, at that--with any animal of any species. I wonder if Gohan's mammalian physiology is exerting some kind of influence over Aochan. Or maybe Aochan is a bit demented from being in captivity. Or something. But this *is* weird.
Savannah, on Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 4:56 PM:
Of course, I forgot one very important fact that probably explains the whole relationship very nicely:
Gohan is *warm.*