It is hard to guess what a Golden hamster weights. But we have the answer:
An adult Golden hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) on average weights 98 grams (0.22 lbs).
The Golden hamster is from the family Muridae (genus: Mesocricetus). It is usually born with about 2 grams (0 lbs). They can live for up to 10 years. When reaching adult age, they grow up to 18 cm (0′ 8″). On average, Golden hamsters can have babies 4 times per year with a litter size of 8.
As a reference: An average human weights in at 62 kg (137 lbs) and reaches an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″). Humans spend 280 days (40 weeks) in the womb of their mother and reach around 75 years of age.
The golden or Syrian hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) is a rodent belonging to the hamster subfamily, Cricetinae. Their natural geographical range is limited to arid areas of northern Syria and southern Turkey. Their numbers have been declining in the wild due to a loss of habitat from agriculture and deliberate elimination by humans. Thus, wild golden hamsters are now considered vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.However, captive breeding programs are well-established, and captive-bred golden hamsters are often kept as small house pets. Syrian hamsters are larger than many of the dwarf hamsters kept as pocket pets (up to 5x larger), and weigh about the same as a sugar glider, though the wild European hamster exceeds Syrian hamsters in size. They are also used as scientific research animals throughout the world.
Animals of the same family as a Golden hamster
We found other animals of the Muridae family:
- Libyan jird with a weight of 91 grams
- Nicaraguan harvest mouse with a size of 7.1 cm (0′ 3″)
- Day’s grass mouse with a weight of 32 grams
- Romanian hamster with a weight of 97 grams
- Banana climbing mouse with 2 babies per litter
- Issel’s groove-toothed swamp rat with a weight of 60 grams
- Venezuelan fish-eating rat with a weight of 47 grams
- Painted big-eared mouse with a weight of 51 grams
- Mittendorf’s striped grass mouse with a weight of 41 grams
- Great Key Island giant rat with a size of 27.5 cm (0′ 11″)
Animals with the same weight as a Golden hamster
As a comparison, here are some other animals that weight as much as the Mesocricetus auratus:
- Kemp’s gerbil bringing 101 grams to the scale
- Big-eared hopping mouse bringing 89 grams to the scale
- Water vole (North America) bringing 92 grams to the scale
- Kowari bringing 109 grams to the scale
- White-tailed antelope squirrel bringing 104 grams to the scale
- Peters’s epauletted fruit bat bringing 95 grams to the scale
- Bougainville mosaic-tailed rat bringing 86 grams to the scale
- Bartels’s spiny rat bringing 88 grams to the scale
- Hastings River mouse bringing 95 grams to the scale
- Allen’s chipmunk bringing 89 grams to the scale
Animals with the same size as a Golden hamster
Not that size really matters, but it makes things comparable. So here are a couple of animals that are as big as Golden hamster:
- Seram long-tailed mosaic-tailed rat with a size of 14.7 cm (0′ 6″)
- Fly River water rat with a size of 14.6 cm (0′ 6″)
- Gambian epauletted fruit bat with a size of 15.6 cm (0′ 7″)
- Luzon striped rat with a size of 17.3 cm (0′ 7″)
- Hugh’s hedgehog with a size of 20 cm (0′ 8″)
- Ruwenzori otter shrew with a size of 16 cm (0′ 7″)
- Edible dormouse with a size of 16.7 cm (0′ 7″)
- Broad-toothed mouse with a size of 16.6 cm (0′ 7″)
- Congo rope squirrel with a size of 14.7 cm (0′ 6″)
- Four-toed elephant shrew with a size of 19.2 cm (0′ 8″)
Animals with the same litter size as a Golden hamster
Here is a list of animals that have the same number of babies per litter (8) as a Golden hamster:
- Campbell’s dwarf hamster
- Narrow-headed vole
- Steppe pika
- Eurasian least shrew
- Grayish mouse opossum
- Virginia opossum
- Tundra shrew
- White-bellied woolly mouse opossum
- Chestnut dunnart
- Brown rat
Animals with the same life expectancy as a Golden hamster
Completely different animals, but becoming as old as a Golden hamster:
- Squirrel glider with an average maximal age of 12 years
- Mindanao treeshrew with an average maximal age of 11.5 years
- Edible dormouse with an average maximal age of 9 years
- Black-flanked rock-wallaby with an average maximal age of 12 years
- Asian small-clawed otter with an average maximal age of 10.08 years
- Naked mole-rat with an average maximal age of 10 years
- Tasmanian pademelon with an average maximal age of 10 years
- Malagasy civet with an average maximal age of 11 years
- Rock cavy with an average maximal age of 11 years
- Brown palm civet with an average maximal age of 12 years