You are quite right Candace in that no true cases of Wet Tail "the stress related illness" have been found in dwarf or Chinese hamsters, although these later species can suffer from extreme diarrhoea which is where some confusion has arisen. Dwarves and Chinese however are not illness free and diabetes for example, once only found in Campbell's Russian Dwarf hamsters has recently been found in Roborovski Dwarves also.
Roborovski Dwarves or the Desert hamster as they are sometimes called (
Phodopus roborovskii) originate from China, Mongolia and Russia where they inhabit semi-arid areas with little vegetation. They construct burrows some 2-6 feet beneath the sand. They lack the dorsal stripe of the Russian Dwarves P. sungorus (Winter White) and P. campbelli (Campbell's) but are a similiar shape, only a LOT smaller at about 5 cm (2 inches), and absolutely gorgeous
My Pippin and Merry:
You can see their eyebrows are slightly different and Pip has a dark grey spot on his forehead where his hair seems to whorl in a cow's lick!
Day 1:
Day 3:
Day 10:
I must admit I was a little dubious about this species when first introduced about 10 years ago. Back then I was really getting into my Russian Dwarves but their sweet temperments and adorable faces soon won me over
It is quite interesting how long it has taken them to reach their growing level of popularity today. The first specimen was captured during the Roborovsky and Kozlov expedition (which is where their name came from) in July of 1894. However, none were held in captivity until the 1970’s by the Moscow Zoo and the Zoological Society of London. Although many Roborovski Dwarves were captured and sent to zoos in the US and UK, those batches did not breed, and most in stock today seem to have originated from Holland.