characteristically for the hamsters is the order of the six humps on the cheek-teeth: they always are ordered in two longitudinal-rows. All hamsters go in for reserve-economy. Most of them possess also cheek-bags, that ease collecting and fullness of the storerooms very much of course.
The body of this kurzschwänzigen Wühler seems somewhat clumsy with the short legs and penetrated. Nevertheless, the hamsters develop a mobility, that one expects them not at all; they can run without exception fast, can dig and also can climb. Some types are extremely fertile (means-hamsters, gold-hamsters).
Spread and types The hamsters were created on the northern hemisphere. Also still today, the spread of the hamsters of Europe stretches as far as to Siberia and China eastward, an exception does the hamster-type Mystromys merely from South Africa. The hamsters were pushed away presumably in Africa of the more up-to-date long-tail-mice southward so that the isolated occurrence of this hamster-type lets itself explain. The South African hamsters resemble its northern cousins completely in its way of life, however they lack the cheek-bags.
The Euro-Asian actual hamsters leave themselves, in accordance with its size, apt as Groß, means, and dwarf-hamsters divide. The differences of the three groups, important with it for the Systematiker, are the formation of the skull and the Penisknochens.
The well-known Groß or field-hamster (Cricetus cricetus) is a character-animal of the west-Asian steppe-levels. it advanced as far as to Europe westward, in Central Europe, it has its most western occurrence.
The means-hamsters (type Mesocricetus) are very familiar in shape of the gold-hamster for us. its spread includes the surroundings of the black sea and the fore Orient as far as to the Iran.
In the steppes and mountains Innerasiens, the small ones, possierlichen dwarf-hamsters with five types (Calomyscus, Phodopus, Allocricetulus, Cricetulus as well as Tscherskia), live. One of the types, Calomyscus from the Iran, also doesn't possess any cheek-bags.
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