Hamster

The family are small, tightly folded rodents with short legs, small ears and short tails. Body length ranges from 5 to 34 cm of the tailfrom 0.7 to 10 cm in some species females are larger than males.Paint a thick fur on the back of the ash or brownish-gray to darkbrown and ocher, the abdomen - black, white or gray. Sometimesalong the back runs a black stripe. There are developed cheek pouches.

Distribution
The inhabitants of the Palaearctic, are found in Central and Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, Syria, Iran, Siberia, Mongolia,northern China and Korea. They live mostly in open arid landscape- steppe, steppe, semi-deserts and deserts, the mountains are found at an altitude of 3600 m, and inhabit man-made landscape -the fields and gardens.

Way of life
Land animals, some species swim well, typing in the cheek pouches air. They live singly, dig complex burrows. In thishibernation does not fall, but may fall into a long stupor. They feed on plant and animal food, mostly seeds. Many types of feed stocksare doing, sometimes up to 90 kg (eg, common hamster).