Hamster and snake best friends at Tokyo zoo

Gohan and Aochan make strange bedfellows: one’s a 9 centimetre dwarf hamster; the other is a 120 centimetre ratsnake.

Zookeepers at Tokyo’s Mutsugoro Okoku zoo presented the hamster – whose name means “meal” in Japanese – to Aochan as a tasty morsel in October, after the snake refused to eat frozen mice. But instead of indulging, Aochan decided to make friends with the furry rodent, according to keeper Kazuya Yamamoto. The pair have shared a cage since.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. Gohan sometimes even climbs onto Aochan to take a nap on his back,” Yamamoto said.

Aochan, a two-year-old male Japanese ratsnake, eventually recovered his appetite for frozen rodents, but has so far shown no signs of gobbling up Gohan - despite her name.

“We named her Gohan as a joke,” Yamamoto chuckled. “But I don’t think there’s any danger. Aochan seems to enjoy Gohan’s company very much.”

The Tokyo zoo also keeps a range of livestock animals, and promotes “crossbreed interaction,” according to Yamamoto.