A friend that works as a researcher in Kiev University was extremely worried at these news.

Have you been informed of the following fact?

Regards,
AP.

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Source: The Biology Bulletin, Kiev University

"The ThunderHamster - Notes about a recent classification"

When announcing to the public the classification of a new specie, it's usual to
worry about the accuracy of every scientific detail. It's also usual to be amazed
when looking to the marvels of Nature and to the hard work of researchers.
It's with some kind of emotion that we release this draft, which will be followed
next month by a deeper article and an interview with Dr.Prof. Kandurias, Biology
Ph.D. at Kiev University.

The Thunder Hamster (Cricetus Reboans) lives in the desertic land of Southern
Australia. Considered not more than a legend of the local tribal communities,
this interesting rodent has been acknowledged by modern science only after two
decades of researches and studies from Prof. Kandurias and his team; Kandurias,
that will soon be proposed for the Nobel Prize, as a direct consequence of his
work, got a severe deafness; actually he can listen only to rap music and
Pavarotti's Opera. Unfortunately, he really hates both kinds of music.

Slightly bigger than the Cricetus Auratus, the Thunder Hamster (Cricetus Reboans)
shows two subspecies, Cricetus Reboans Kandurianis and C.R. Bazoukianis (after
the name of Bazoukis, the first assistant of Kandurias). They look very similar
but are distinguished by the fact that the groups of C.R.Kandurianis stay right
when move along a path, while C.R. Bazoukianis groups stay left. Of course,
these two subspecies never mix in the same group of individuals. The hair of
Cricetus Reboans is usually grey, with a black stripe all along the backbone,
with a white hair around the nose, mouth and eyes. The rear side hair is dark
red, while the left and right sides of the animal show one bright orange stripe
each. Kandurias, maybe completely stoned other than deaf, described it, with a
questionable sense of humor, as "escaping hamster color".

The lifestyle of C.Reboans is quite straightforward; this rodent eats bugs,
seeds and rattlesnake eggs: the fact that C.Reboans survives when other species
of hamster die for starvation in the same area derives from its ability to eat
snake eggs. Usually rattlesnakes eat little rodents like hamsters, but not the
C.Reboans. This rodent, actually, developed a particular attitude that can be
used as a transport/attack/defense system; this peculiarity makes C.Reboans a
winning specie in the evolutionary landscape.

Everyone of us may note that pet hamsters (Cricetus Cricetus) move rapidly
their legs when they move around; eventually, when the hamster is scared by a
sudden noise, it may accelerate so quickly that its feet loose their grip.
The C.Reboans exasperates this characteristic to an unbelievable stage: the
linear speed of its feet was in fact measured by the team of Kandurias about
at 450m/s; the average sound speed in the area in which C.Reboans lives is
330m/s, so each step of C.Reboans produces a shockwave followed by a blast.
The sound coming from C.Reboans is so loud that no one, human or beast, can
approach it without being severely shocked; of course, Australian tribal
communities always considered C.Reboans a myth that, like comets in the Middle
Age Europe, carried misfortune, bad wheater and plagues.
The C.Reboans uses its own noise to defend itself; predators cannot go near the
hamster except when it sleeps. But the C.Reboans developed a social life in a way
that no individuals are always alone; it usually moves in groups of some hundreds
of individuals (usually one thousand). Every 7 or 8 hours the group decides to
stop and rest (maybe they communicate through odorous signals); while the 80% to
90% of individuals go to sleep, the remaining ones start running in a wide circle
around the sleeping group, forming an unbreakable protection. This 'patrolling'
activity seems not to be a strain for the hamsters, that usually engage
speed competitions by themselves (maybe this behaviour has also a meaning as a
sexual competition between male individuals).
These hamsters, when need to rest, are replaced by other individuals coming from
the resting group that move - at subsonic speed - near the circle, then enter
particular paths to accelerate; this phase is signalled by a quick tail wagging
and random (and loud) farts, probably caused by the visceral compression due to
the powerful and fast movement of the legs. The hypothesis that these farts are
a supplementary jet propulsion for C.Reboans has proven to be completely false
by the recent studies.

C.Reboans eats bugs and small birds that have been shocked by the loud noise;
shockwaves scare rattlesnakes so much that they run away; shockwaves also break
their eggs, so making it easy to the hamster to eat them.
A side-study of Prof. Bazoukis showed that an increasing population of C.Reboans
caused a decreased population of rattlesnakes in the same area. Rather than being
good news, this fact should be a warning about environmental stability.

C.Reboans can be identified by some anatomical adaptation: the hairless legs and
feet and the absence of auricolar pavillions, maybe due to aerodinamical factors
and the fact that the noise produced by the hamster makes any hearing organ
completely useless.
C.Reboans has a short tail, like any other hamster, but its own is bright red and
always visible even in the darkest night. Usually the hamster holds its tail
straight and upwards; the hypothesis is that this allows to C.Reboans to see
other individuals through the dust clouds produced by the whole group.

The only real enemies for C.Reboans are crashes (having usually lethal
consequences) with other hamsters and trucks. At any rate, truck drivers will be
soon instructed to avoid these irritable rodents and to give them way at road
crossings.
Undergoing lab tests are trying to find a solution to the problem by identifying
the necessary infrastructures that will allow the migration of C.Reboans groups
avoiding any danger to road vehicles. Actually, every attempt failed; covering
road crossings with a metallic sheet (this because C.Reboans groups also cause
severe damage to road pavings) to protect the paving doesn't work as expected
because C.Reboans soon learned that metal can reflect shockwaves and give a
upward push to the hamster's body. Groups of C.Reboans had a great fun using
the laboratory installation to practice in spectacular collective jumps.
Trying to build subway tunnels using metallic tubes is the worst solution,
because lab tests showed that a group of C.Reboans entering into such
installations is subject to resonance and tunnel effects that will shoot out
individuals from the opposite hole at a speed high enough to travel for many
thousands of kilometres on balistic paths; this also produces severe sismical
effects.

Many hypothesis try to explain how C.Reboans wasn't yet classified; the common
opinion is that it's hard to believe to such an absurd animal; moreover, before
infrared photography was introduced, all the documents about C.Reboans were
pictures of dust clouds and recordings that reproduced a noise similar to that
of hundreds of motorbikes.

The hypothesis under which C.Reboans is actually a genetic modification
experiment that went out of control has not yet proven to be either true or
false; in fact, it's the opinion of many scientists that C.Reboans was
originally a biological war weapon: the damage that this rodent may cause to
agriculture is obvious and there isn't any large-scale deterrent (except
ground-to-ground missiles and mined fields). Of course, the scientfici world
won't ever consider the magic practice of many tribal communities that protect
their villages using a metal pole carrying a red circle crossed by a white
stripe.

Because of this clear danger, Australian authorities will release soon the
ThunderHamster Act, to prevent the uncontrolled export of live individuals
- also for scientifical purpose - and discouraging people from considering
C.Reboans as a pet. Anyway, it seems (but there's no evidence at the moment)
that small groups of C.Reboans has been sought offshore, travelling on the
water by means of the shockwaves (so creating a 'ground effect' that allowed
them to run like hovercrafts).

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