This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Hamster wheel is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
- The related term squirrel cage may refer to:
Hamster wheels are exercise toys used by hamsters and other rodents. Most of these toys are composed of a runged wheel held on a stand by a pair of stub axles. Hamster wheels allow rodents to run even when their space is confined.
Most wheels are constructed of steel or plastic, both with advantages and problems. Solid plastic wheels are safer for some types of pets, such as hamsters, because their feet or legs can get stuck between the rungs of a steel wheel and cause injuries. However, some rodents (such as gerbils) will quickly chew on and destroy plastic wheels, but not steel wheels.
Choice tests with Syrian hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) have shown that they prefer larger wheels; the animals chose a wheel diameter of 35 cm (14 in) over 23 cm (9 in), which itself was preferred over 17.5 cm (7 in). The hamsters expressed no preference between a relatively uniform running surface made of plastic mesh and rungs spaced 9 mm apart, though they did prefer the mesh over rungs spaced 12 mm apart, most likely because the wider space between the rungs let their legs slip through sometimes, with an attendant risk of injury. The hamsters neither preferred nor avoided wheels that had small "speed bumps" installed along the running surface to provide environmental enrichment.[1]
Like other rodents, hamsters are highly motivated to run in wheels; it is not uncommon to record distances of 10 km (6.5 miles) ran in one night. Other 24-h records include 43 km (26 miles) for rats, 31 km (18.5 miles) for wild mice, 19 km (11.5 miles) for lemmings, 16 km (9.5 miles) for laboratory mice, and 8 km (5 miles) for gerbils; hypotheses to explain such high levels of running in wheels include innate activity, substitute for exploration, and stereotypic behaviour, but various experimental results suggest that wheel running, like play or the runner's high, is rewarding in and of itself.[2] It is tempting to draw parallels with humans who run for fun.
A related toy, the hamster ball is a spherical plastic ball into which a pet can be temporarily locked. The ball allows the pet to freely roll around on the floor to explore and exercise, while preventing escape. Care must be taken to block off stairways, and time in the ball should be limited as more than an hour without access to water could allow a pet to become dehydrated.
Hamster wheel humour
Hamster wheels have often been proposed as the basis of many speculative methods for power generation, though they are not feasible for large-scale applications; Make Magazine and other similar publications have included directions for rodent-powered nightlights, but such projects are explicitly small-scaled and meant mostly for humor value. Running hamsters are often said in jest to be the true power behind computer networks, especially slow-moving or unreliable ones. The joke is similarly applied to sub-compact automobiles and other small motor vehicles. Of course, energy can be produced more efficiently by burning food directly in a furnace rather than giving the food to a hamster and harnessing the power output of its running activity.
Human-sized wheels
Runged wheels have been constructed large enough to allow humans to exercise and/or roll around in them. See also wheel gymnastics. A wheel that is used for power generation is called a treadwheel. A similar wheel was used as the "One-Ton Human Hamster Wheel" on the game show Double Dare.
References
- ^ Reebs, S.G. and St-Onge, P., 2005, Running wheel choice by Syrian hamsters, Laboratory Animals 39: 442-451; Mrosovsky, N., Salmon, P.A. and Vrang, N., 1998, Revolutionary science: an improved running wheel for hamsters, Chronobiology International 15: 147-158.
- ^ Sherwin, C.M., 1998, Voluntary wheel running: a review and novel interpretation, Animal Behaviour 56: 11-27
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 7 July 2008, at 18:54.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Hamster wheel".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.