Hamster Time Perception

[Catherine Spark]

Around about December I did some calculations based on the average life of a random sample of male Syrian hamsters in the ‘How Long do They Live?’ section. I wanted to do it by age alone, so I eliminated any causes of death that were known to be from illness or injury. I excluded female Syrian hamsters due to the high number that had contracted pyometra. Bearing in mind that variances in care, and that hamster pedigrees weren’t taken into consideration in the calculation (and I don’t mean either of these in a derogatory or personal manner, but purely scientific), I came up with a rough figure of 1 year = 36.5 hamster years, or 10 days = 1 hamster year. Very rough, since the oldest hamster in the section was recorded as living to eight years old, and the youngest to around a year.

But I thought it would be interesting and possibly provide some insight into a hamster’s perception of time (as far as we can ever know how another creature perceives things) to work out the finer calculations based on this figure. Here is what I came up with:

1 year = 36.5 hamster years
As there are 365 human days in a human year
365 human days divided by 36.5 hamster years
= 10 human days to 1 hamster year

So if we divide 10 by 365
= 0.027 human days to 1 hamster day
And if we divide this by 24
= 0.648 human hours to 1 hamster hour
There are 60 human minutes to a human hour
So 0.648 x 60
= 38.88 human minutes to 1 hamster day

And 1 hamster hour
= 38.88 human minutes divided by 24
= 1.62 human minutes
1.62 human minutes x 60 human seconds for each human minute
= 97.2 human seconds to 1 hamster hour

1 hamster minute
= 97.2 human seconds divided by 60 human minutes
= 1.62 human seconds to 1 hamster minute

And 1 hamster second
= 1.62 human seconds divided by 60 human seconds
And every hamster second =
= 0.027 human seconds (27 hundredths of a second, about half the length it takes to speak one syllable) to 1 hamster second


So if this is accurate, and I have no way of knowing and nor would anyone else, I think…and if my calculations are ALSO accurate…Whilst a second feels like a second to us, a hamster’s feeling of a second is only 2.7% the length of that time. In other words, things in the human world appear to happen 97.3% slower to hamsters than they appear to for humans. To get an idea of how that feels, you could try speaking a sentence at a rate of only one syllable every two seconds.



So fifteen human seconds of stroking/interaction in our time is a good twenty hamster minutes of TLC. And two human years feels like a good long lifetime to a hamster.

[Humphrey Furball]

Interesting! I sometimes think about this, in relation to our days & nights and how long it would seem to a hammie; using your values of 10 human days = 1 hamster year, then 1 human day is approx 36 hamster days, so there is daylight for around half of that on average at at time i.e. 18 days light then 18 days dark; that would be weird! Also, no wonder they need little naps; who could stay awake for 18 days straight?!!

[Catherine Spark]

It's just as well they don't get dark-induced depression, like humans can if they stay in the dark for days on end! I think the human record for staying awake was 11 days straight...but the person was mad at the end of it (he recovered with sleep though). I guess a hamster sleep schedule, to them, would be something like four days asleep, four days awake alternating? But presumably that would change though, depending on the age of the hamster. Glad you worked out how many hamster days per human day - it's cool that it all seems to fit proportionally when worked out with this system!

Oh, and I wonder...if they really do hear us speaking as if we're speaking only 1 syllable every two seconds or so, if we played them sped up programmes and music to better hold their attention, would they turn into digital junkies?!

[Catherine Spark]

Ha. A TV series for hamsters. Bright colours and simple shapes moving and changing, with piano music in the background. Following production, each episode is sped up by 97%, and final length for each episode would be fifteen seconds. Makes me laugh!