Hamster Charisma Charms Away Snake's Appetite

I thought I'd heard it all. Dogs saving lives of cats, Gorillas lip-synching Sinatra tunes, even tigers living in NYC apartments as pets. But this one gives new meaning to the infamous Rodney King quote, "Can't we all just get along." 

Getting along is just what this snake and hamster, normally predator and prey, are doing. We'll never know if it was the Hamster's Charisma or the Snakes Loneliness that brought about this animal attraction. But in today's dog eat dog world, where the sly snakes of society coldly feed on the meek mice of men, any friendship among adversaries is a welcome hope for future negotiations between all living creatures. 

One World! Here's the story for you: 

Hamster, Snake Best Friends at Tokyo Zoo Thursday, January 19, 2006 

This hamster was supposed to be a meal for the ratsnake. ... (01-19) 17:03 PST TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Gohan and Aochan make strange bedfellows: one's a 3.5-inch dwarf hamster; the other is a four-foot rat snake. Zookeepers at Tokyo's Mutsugoro Okoku zoo presented the hamster — whose name means "meal" in Japanese — to Aochan as a tasty morsel in October, after the snake refused to eat frozen mice. 

But instead of indulging, Aochan decided to make friends with the furry rodent, according to keeper Kazuya Yamamoto. The pair have shared a cage since. "I've never seen anything like it. Gohan sometimes even climbs onto Aochan to take a nap on his back," Yamamoto said. Aochan, a 2-year-old male Japanese rat snake, eventually developed an appetite for frozen rodents but has so far shown no signs of gobbling up Gohan — despite her name. 

"We named her Gohan as a joke," Yamamoto chuckled. "But I don't think there's any danger. Aochan seems to enjoy Gohan's company very much." The Tokyo Zoo also keeps a range of mostly livestock animals, and promotes "cross-breed interaction," according to Yamamoto. But Gohan and Aochan's case "was a complete accident," Yamamoto said.