What is the maximal age a European hamster reaches?
An adult European hamster (Cricetus cricetus) usually gets as old as 4 years.
European hamsters are around 19 days in the womb of their mother. When born, they weight 4 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 20.6 cm (0′ 9″). As a member of the Muridae family (genus: Cricetus), a European hamster caries out around 7 little ones per pregnancy, which happens around 2 times a year. Fully grown, they reach a bodylength of 2.01 meter (6′ 8″).
As a reference: Usually, humans get as old as 100 years, with the average being around 75 years. After being carried in the belly of their mother for 280 days (40 weeks), they grow to an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″) and weight in at 62 kg (137 lbs), which is obviously highly individual.
The European hamster (Cricetus cricetus), also known as the Eurasian hamster, black-bellied hamster or common hamster, is the only species of the genus Cricetus. It is native to a large range in Eurasia, extending from Belgium to the Altai mountains and Yenisey River in Russia. Where abundant the animal is widely considered a farmland pest, and it has also been trapped for its fur. Across its global range, it is considered of least concern, but in many individual Western European countries it is considered critically endangered. Cricetus is also a monotypic genus.
Animals of the same family as a European hamster
Not really brothers and sisters, but from the same biological family (Muridae):
- Gray spiny mouse getting as big as 8.5 cm (0′ 4″)
- Oreoryzomys bringing the scale to 60 grams
- Abrothrix lanosus bringing the scale to 27 grams
- Gambian pouched rat with 3 babies per pregnancy
- White-throated grass mouse bringing the scale to 42 grams
- Greater mole-rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Dusky hopping mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Chinese zokor bringing the scale to 257 grams
- Indian hairy-footed gerbil with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Transcaspian vole with 2 babies per pregnancy
Animals that reach the same age as European hamster
With an average age of 4 years, European hamster are in good companionship of the following animals:
- Striped field mouse usually reaching 4 years
- Arctic lemming usually reaching 3.75 years
- Greater cane rat usually reaching 4.25 years
- Fat-tailed dunnart usually reaching 4.25 years
- Gray tree rat usually reaching 3.75 years
- Black rat usually reaching 4.17 years
- Kultarr usually reaching 3.25 years
- Giant golden mole usually reaching 4 years
- Gray four-eyed opossum usually reaching 3.5 years
- Yellow-faced pocket gopher usually reaching 4.67 years
Animals with the same number of babies European hamster
The same number of babies at once (7) are born by:
- Northern red-sided opossum
- Drylands vesper mouse
- Ooldea dunnart
- Pallas’s pika
- Linnaeus’s mouse opossum
- Common opossum
- Taiga shrew
- Yellow steppe lemming
- Southern ningaui
- Lesser bandicoot rat
Weighting as much as European hamster
A fully grown European hamster reaches around 429 grams (0.95 lbs). So do these animals:
- Mauritian flying fox with 473 grams
- Horse-tailed squirrel with 358 grams
- Mountain giant Sunda rat with 419 grams
- Weyland ringtail possum with 456 grams
- Desert hedgehog with 352 grams
- Buffy-tufted marmoset with 387 grams
- Squirrel-toothed rat with 511 grams
- Colombian soft-furred spiny rat with 394 grams
- Azara’s tuco-tuco with 400 grams
- Goya tuco-tuco with 400 grams