Posted on 07/26/2009 6:59:28 PM PDT by Steelfish
Snake 'befriends' snack hamster
Aochan, the snake 'seems to enjoy' being with Gohan, the hamster A rodent-eating snake and a hamster have developed an unusual bond at a zoo in the Japanese capital, Tokyo.
[Pic in URL]
Their relationship began in October last year, when zookeepers presented the hamster to the snake as a meal.
The rat snake, however, refused to eat the rodent. The two now share a cage, and the hamster sometimes falls asleep sitting on top of his natural foe.
"I have never seen anything like it," a zookeeper at the Mutsugoro Okoku zoo told the Associated Press News agency.
The hamster was initially offered to Aochan, the two-year-old rat snake, because it was refusing to eat frozen mice. As a joke, the zookeeper said they named the hamster Gohan - the Japanese word for meal.
"I don't think there's any danger. Aochan seems to enjoy Gohan's company very much," said zookeeper Kazuya Yamamoto. The apparent friendship between the snake and hamster is one of many reported bonds spanning the divide between predator and prey.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
If Wrong can now be called Right... then I don’t see why this can’t happen! It’s no more strange than the what the obamanation has tried to put over the American people!
wow, just wow.
Stories like this are just great fun.
The hamster...like about 52% of US voters last November...will eventually discover that having befriended a snake was a big,BIG mistake.
Better than the original- thanks for the pic post!
One of these days Gohan will be missing from their cage . . . sniff
I just get the feeling that one of these days those zookeepers are going to wake up and find just a snake with a big round buldge in his neck
Nah, unlike American voters the hamster doesn’t have a choice. It’s befriend the snake or become lunch. Eventually it’ll probably be lunch anyway, but can’t fault the hamster.
Happened with our snake in college from time to time...Sometimes the snake just isn’t hungry. Give it time that hamster can cozy up all it wants but it’ll end up coming out the other end of that snake soon enough.
Fatten up there little hamster. Eat.... Eat... You’re skin and bones.
Your tagline makes me wonder: is there a spiritual lesson/parallel here?
Don’t mess with the Gohan....
I know what happened. I took a look at the photo and I know what happened.
You see, Gohan is like the Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu or Mencius or Sun Tzu. You see, they put him in the snake’s quarters and he quickly thought of a way to save himself by using philosophy.
He thought: A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
Maybe.
He thought: We live, not as we wish to, but as we can.
How true.
He thought: For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
And then: He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious.
And more: If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
This came to him: Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.
And this: The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
And he liked this one: The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Finally it came to him: You have to believe in yourself.
And so Gohan did. He believed in himself. He talked the snake into saving his life and thereby saving both their lives. The snake is now special because he didn’t eat the hamster and the hamster is special because he has a good memory of Chinese Philosophy.
End of story, not of tail.
Hamster’s probably been telling him some BS serialised story he’s making up on the spot. As long as he keeps the plot interesting the snake is going to keep him around to see what happens in the next episode.
Well, the only 'lesson' I was going to append was that men and creatures weren't originally made to eat each other:
Genesis 1:29-30 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
But with the Fall, the Creation has become 'red in tooth and claw'
Romans 8:18-22 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
But there will come a time when death and pain will be destroyed:
Isaiah 11:6-9 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
...But regarding my tag line ... It only applies to people (made in the image of God). And although the Believer might die in the flesh -- he will be saved and live...
Whether Gohan makes it to the time where the 'asp will play with the child' (or Gohan) is debatable...
lol - I wasn’t implying that the tagline was applicable to non-humans. (though it should be noted that we do have some control of our environs.)
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