Jamaican hamster, a hamster that once lived in Jamaica. It once caused serious rat plagues due to its large number, arousing people's hatred, and was eventually hunted by humans and led to extinction. Today, the editor will give you some knowledge about this unfortunate little guy!
1. Morphological characteristics
1. Body shape
The Jamaican hamster is short and thick, with a body length of about 0.2 meters and a weight of 0.5 to 0.6 kilograms.
2. Tail
The tail is short, generally no more than half the body length, and overall thin.
3. Teeth
The Jamaican hamster has a pair of continuously growing incisors and three pairs of molars. The tooth shape is: 1003, which is a staggered triangular prism. . Molars may or may not have roots and can grow throughout life.
2. Living habits
1. Living environment
Jamaican hamsters live in grass, woods, They can survive in farmland, dig holes in these places, and feed on the seeds of various plants. Their holes are very deep, some reaching tens of meters, and have multiple exits. Most of the space in the cave is used to store grain. It is said that the largest one can store hundreds of kilograms of grain.
2. Eating habits
The main food of Jamaican hamsters is plant seeds. They like to eat nuts, tender stems or leaves of plants, and occasionally small insects. , in addition, it does not hibernate to store food for the winter.
3. Growth and reproduction
Jamaican hamsters can breed throughout the year. Each litter can produce 5 to 6 pups. The gestation period is 28 days. A baby can become sexually mature two months after birth.
Although Jamaican hamsters reproduce quickly, their original numbers are not very large. The main reason is that they have many natural enemies, so their numbers have always been within a relatively controllable range. However, later, due to humans' elimination of their natural enemies, their numbers increased rapidly, which eventually threatened human normal life and were hunted in large numbers, eventually leading to extinction.
4. Extinction Process
After entering the 16th century, humans began to hunt a large number of wild animals, and the natural enemies of the Jamaican hamster also decreased rapidly. Without their natural predators, the number of hamsters in Jamaica has increased rapidly, and they have stolen a large amount of food, causing a serious rat plague. This aroused people's hatred for them, which led to a campaign to eradicate rats. Because the number of Jamaican hamsters was too large, it did not decrease until the early 19th century. However, people wanted to completely eliminate Jamaican hamsters, so the hunting of Jamaican hamsters did not stop. In 1880, the Jamaican hamster became extinct.
Every species in nature is an important link in the biological chain and plays a vital role in maintaining ecological balance. It can be said that the extinction of the Jamaican hamster is caused by humans destroying the balance. I hope that all living things on earth will be treated kindly by humans in the future, and that tragedies will not be allowed to happen again.
