Wild Hamsters Thriving in Viennese Graveyards | Coexistence | BBC Earth
Wild hamsters are taking over Vienna's cemeteries 🐹
These tiny mammals are critically endangered, but are learning to thrive in these vast cemeteries, on a diet of calorific candle wax and fresh flowers.
Animals are learning to survive and thrive in one very surprising habitat - cities. Join wildlife presenter Hannah Stitfall as she sets out on a mission to meet our new neighbours. #Coexistence
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Here I am a 32 year old man watching Hamsters living in the graveyard and couldn't be more happy about it .
50 years here and the same.
24 years & I feel nothing but joy 🤩
17 and this is such an adorable conversation
41F and same! ♥️
Yea especially when they're eating on rotting corpse
Hamsters in graveyards...be still my lil goth heart. They're adorable. Hamsters in Graveyards is also a good name for a garage band
We totally need that on a tee shirt!
What are the odds the hamsters didn't grow up to be that big eating seeds and plants and graveside beeswax candles?
@@meilinchan7314 i don't think hamsters eat carrion or other dead bodies in graveyards
They have a little hamster bang, that they flip
@@meilinchan7314unlikely because besides what the other commenter said about diet preferences, they only burrow about 3 feet down.
I love how happy the photographer looked the entire time. She really loves her job. I would too! Those hamsters are adorable and huge for hamsters!
I know! So cute and wholesome 🤗
Cricetus cricetus can have up to 500 g (normally aprox. 300). By the way they are pretty "assertive" :D
When she said they grow up to 30 centimeters I thought that must've been a mistake. But according to wiki they can grow up to 35cm. Never realised hamsters can be that big!
I'm an experienced biologist and I would have a hard time not squealing my head off when seeing these adorable things living in the wild. I suppose I'd have to put my hand tightly over my mouth but it would be smiling the whole time.
They are a different specie than the golden hamster/Syrian hamster that are commonly pets. These ones cannot be handled, I have heard, because they bite hard enough to injure you, even through chain mail gloves!
Fun fact: In the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle there is a Bronze Age gravesite (excavated as a block) that has the tunnel of a hamster right through the skeletons of the people. The animal displaced some of the human bones and eventually died in its burrow itself. It is now part of the exhibit.
That is TRULY AMAZING! But did they bury people shallower in the Bronze Age? I ask because as a biologist I can't imagine hamsters tunneling 6 feet down. Also do you know if there are any photos of this grave block online? I'd love to see it but don't know what search terms would find it.
@@audreymuzingo933 I did not find any fotos of the block online, sorry. Other, similar exhibits, yes, but not this one. And I would have to visit the museum again to tell you more about it. It's been a few years since I saw it and I only remember it because of the hamster incident. During the Bronze Age there were several different types of graves (including urns with cremated remains) and it's possible that this one was a kind of emergency grave after a violent event. It was definitely a group grave with several people and they were lying in the ground very close to each other. Despite the name "Bronze Age", bronze was still a pretty valuable material. Maybe the people only had stone hoes to dig the grave. So it's possible it wasn't that deep. I could also be slightly off and it was from the late Stone Age. ^ ^
@@audreymuzingo933 Ok, so I read through a few texts and found the following things: a) It seems that old graves are being disturbed by all kinds of things and burrowing animals are among those. I also read about an early medieval grave that was disturbed by some burrowing animal (it displaced a silver earring from the ear into the chest area). Another grave in this compound had been dug ca. 1m deep when it was made. I would link you the source, but it's in German, so I'm not sure how helpful it is. b) Farmers and other people also disturb old graves a lot. I found one case of an early Bronze Age grave, where the farmer said he had removed between 20 and 50cm of topsoil in order to even out his field. The bottom of the grave is now 55cm below the surface, so it would have been somewhere between 75 and 105cm below the surface before the farmer came. Hard to tell what the original surface was, because so much has shifted since the early Bronze Age. Germany has a lot of history and people have been doing earthworks here for millenia. (Another grave was disturbed by people digging a hole centuries later, for example.) The text in which I read this also said about other graves from this time (Unetice culture), that they were on average 70cm deep, but they also said that this depth is in relation to today's surface level and they cannot tell how deep they were originally. c) In many cases the people used big stones or stone slabs to build a kind of grave chamber or to put them on top of the graves. Maybe that's how they tried to protect the dead against scavangers because they couldn't dig so deep. For example, one early Bronze Age grave was originally only 30cm deep, contained a heap of bones from several individuals, and was finally covered with a 15kg heavy limestone slab that had been transported there from further away. Another grave had even heavier stone blocks of 20 and 25kg. Again, I would link the source for those Bronze Age grave infos for you, but it's in German. If you want it, tell me and I hope links work here.
@@johannageisel5390 No I totally believe you without the links (and most youtube comment threads just automatically delete links anyway, or the comments get filled with spam links). THANK YOU for all that digging, my goodness I am not used to such effort in a reply from someone, ha. So yes, I'm not surprised graves used to be shallower considering they didn't have big hydrolic excavating machines like we have now. And particularly when burying people in the winter, in cold regions, the soil would be incredibly hard, so they just had to do their best I suppose. I'm only disappointed that there is no photo of the hamster tunneling, ha! Do you remember if the dead hamster is also skeletized or is does it still have skin and fur? I'm really morbid I guess, I just think this sounds like a strangely beautiful thing to see.
Danke; war sehr interessant zu lesen. Grüße aus Lübeck! :) @@johannageisel5390
I'm from Vienna and my grandma is buried there. I had no idea about the hamsters and other wildlife (besides insects, squirrells, crows and other birds) living there; that's amazing! Thanks for sharing.
Now you can go and visit her and look around with a different outlook
My whole family is buried there aswell. Never knew about the hamsters though.
Gosh! Probably those guys ate the remainder of your grandma!
I'm from Vienna and my grandma is buried next to your grandma. I like the hamsters but she scares them off telling them to stay off her lawn.
@@THEDAVILAK1 you gotta go at the right time, they’ll be back home in their burrows by the time people are visiting during daytime. Go during dawn or dusk!
been spending most our lives living in a hamster's paradise
That was GOOD!
This is the best comment! Thank you for your service!
Beethoven for couple of centuries
@@jollyjokress3852 lmao 💀 😂
more like "been spending most our death living in a hamster paradife..."
Ingenious idea to make graveyards little biodiversity havens.
It's so fitting.
Agreed, so wonderful
They are literally recycling the items brought to the graves, it feels like Nature has given us a way to give back as we mourn for our friends and family they feed off of what would otherwise go to waste days later.
Not sure if you mean humans "made" them havens, but I'm pretty sure the animals figured it out for themselves. Vast spaces with a bit of sturdy structure to protect from wind, old growth trees that would have been cut down everywhere else, and very little human presence, mostly on foot as opposed to cars (which drive really slowly), and no guns firing.
@@audreymuzingo933 The most peacefull place is where all the humans are dead. 💀
Hamsters are one of those pets most kids have when they're younger, and now having one as an adult for some reason there's a whole new appreciation for the quirks and personalities they can have that you just don't recognize as a child. My hamster's name is Gimli and couldn't be more happy about having him as a pet now as an adult
this is a different species from domesticated ones....
I got my hammy a week ago and I’m already deeply in love with him, I love watching him exploring when he gets the hamster zoomies, and hearing his little feet tapping on my tables when he’s on his adventures ☺️ he also likes to sit on my reindeer ornaments… not their backs, their antlers 😂
@@katiestephens2901 I didn't know hamsters got zoomies too! I guess it's a universal thing for animals
@crzrck Indeed, and these ones do not make good pets because they're naturally rather aggressive. They're also the largest species of hamster in the world, about the size of a Guinea Pig.
@@crzrck There aren't any domesticated hamster species, though the species in the video is not commonly kept as a pet. All pet hamsters are wild animals, which is why their care requirements can be difficult to meet, they are not recommanded as young children's pets and you shouln't get one without thorough research.
This has to be a world record for most widest smiles at a cemetery.
:p
23 year old college student here. Stopped studying to watch some hamsters in a graveyard ❤love it!
22 year old student, who also stopped studying for the same except reason 😇
It's a good break for the brain.
LOL I'm a 43 year old college student watching hamsters instead of studying right now!
Viennese here! I love hamsters, if you look closely you can find them in many more spots in the city 💛 And our cemetery is one of my favourite places here. So happy about this episode
Brigittenau zB.
@@johhaijh Really? I’ve only ever seen rats there. Lots of hamsters in Favoriten though.
That's wonderful to hear that you love hamsters and that you have found them in many other spots in the city. It's always exciting to discover unexpected wildlife in urban areas. The fact that the cemetery is one of your favorite places in Vienna is a testament to the beauty and diversity of the natural world, even in unexpected places. I hope this experience encourages you to continue exploring and appreciating the many wonders of nature that can be found in and around the city.
Oh, I love Vienna! You’re so lucky to live there.
That's it. I am going to have a hamster wheel built into my headstone.
These are the European hamsters which are much larger than the Syrian hamster domesticated across the world. I have become quite enamored of hamsters in the last couple of years as they are a species full of dignity and deserve a fair chance to survive. I also am a big fan of beavers and would love to have a giant preserve for both of these species and of course the rest of the wildlife that would blossom next to these two species.
Well… a “giant preserve” for beavers really doesn’t make any sense, ecologically. Such a thing would be the epitome of centralization. Beavers (and the waterways they manage) need to be distributed. Distribution is the essence of nature. Centralization is its anathema.
@@stvbrsn Not exactly a preserve but a large tract of land ( with at least one or more suitable streams) that beavers can terraform with all the attending wildlife. The hamsters would be welcome to live in the non wet lands that the beavers do not take over.
@@anthonycarbone3826 A smarter option is to protect wetland areas. My state makes it illegal to develop wetland areas whatsoever.
From life comes death, but from death also comes life. I love how a graveyard can be a place where animals thrive, it's nice and the hamsters are so cute! No wonder we humans fell in love with them
Many decades ago..graveyards were beautifully created like parks with benches and tables so that people could go and enjoy themselves there..often having picnics and relaxing with their ancestors. Sadly..graveyards are now just made to make money and bury as many people as possible.
All cemeteries should double as animal sanctuaries. I want a bobcat watching over me during my long nap.
She’s so utterly excited when she sees a hamster ❤
She should do a video regarding the tropical parrots of New York City. They live all over, but the ones that are easiest to see are under the overpasses on the West Side near the pier. These ones are large green parrots. Most have escaped a pet owner. During winter they live in places with steam or heat like vent systems and only venture out for food.
Same in Düsseldorf and Cologne
Monk parakeets have been in Washington Park in Chicago for decades. Plus, Chi now has coyotes.
WHAT?! One day when I visit New York I will find a way to see the parrots
There are 4 species of parrots living in the Athens /Piraeus urban complex. Two of them have grown in such numbers that the Greek Bird Society has included them in the local species. Interestingly enough, they do not compete with the local bird fauna since they are mostly fruit eating creatures.
She is just lovely and her enthusiasm is captivating. She needs a show where she does this all over the world.
Oh wow. They're smarter than I thought. From farm to cemetery, that's a wise decision, mate! We all want a peaceful & quiet life.
They really are smart, I had a hamster that learned to use my hand as an elevator to go up and down the bed. She'd go right up to me and into my hand. So cute.
That's why people everywhere are just dying to get into cemeteries.
Hamsters are also omnivorous ;^)
...or they just don't get wiped out by poisons and combine blades.
It's fascinating to think about the behavior of wild hamsters and how they adapt to living in different environments, including both farms and cemeteries. As burrowing rodents, hamsters need suitable habitats that provide them with shelter, food, and safety from predators. It's possible that the graveyards provide these conditions, making them an attractive location for the hamsters to live.
They're really surprisingly common around here in Vienna. I knew that they are an endangered species, so imagine my surprise when I saw one foraging on a transport company's parking area for the first time! At Zentralfriedhof they face a rare predator too, long-eared owls live there as well.
It's amazing to hear that wild hamsters are surprisingly common in Vienna and that you've had the opportunity to see them in unexpected places. As you mentioned, wild hamsters are an endangered species, and their survival is dependent on suitable habitats and protection from predators. The fact that long-eared owls live in the same area is both fascinating and concerning, as it highlights the complex interactions between different species in an ecosystem.
"It's right in front of me!" She reacts like it's a snow leopard or something. It's kind of adorable. 😂
Wild, wild hamsters, couldn't drag me away.
Going to take a chance here and ask if your name was inspired by the song Fish heads by Billy Mumy. Love your comment, by the way.
@@christine4223 No it wasn't. However, I do get asked that quite a bit. ;-D
Another reason why vienna is one of the greatest cities in the world!
Wien ist schön: Komponisten und hamsters/ schöne Musik und wildlife!
It's fascinating to hear that wild hamsters are thriving in Viennese graveyards. These small, burrowing rodents are typically found in fields and meadows, so it's surprising that they have adapted to living in urban environments like graveyards. Vienna has taken steps to protect these wild hamsters by designating certain areas as protected habitats and planting specific types of vegetation to encourage their survival. This is a great example of how urban planning can help preserve wildlife and biodiversity, even in densely populated areas.
So, if you live there and visit that graveyard (or other places where hamsters are), choose natural candles like beeswax candles over paraffin wax candles or even LED candles. So when the hamsters eat candles to get the fat they need, they at least get the best option available. OMG, they’re soooooo cute, cuteness overload present in this video, for sure! 💓🐹💓🤗
Adorable Yes, we can Live alongside Nature🌍
It’s not, we can, its we must, without it we won’t be here.
She took a gorgeous photo. The beauty is not just the way you can see all the markings but in the delightful pose the hamster is in. Those ears!
I've also seen them at the Favoritner Wasserturm (an old watertower in the southern part of the city), playing/fighting under the bushes. Unfortunately its really only the outer parts of the city that are very green, as there are some very large protected areas (inlcuding even a national park) on the city's borders along with a lot of farmland which contribute to this "50% green space statistic. The built up areas are often quite grey, with 9 districts having at most 10% greenspaces and 3 districts being even as low as 2%!. Still we do get suprising wildlife in the inner city now and then. Foxes are ocassionally spotted around the ring or recently in the metro! Theres also a big field near the main train station (Helmut Zilk Park) and I've seen hares running around there in the early hours.
I agree that Vienna is beautifully green in some parts, but in others you don't see a single in a long street. I'm originally from Hamburg, Germany - a city that overall I consider to be a lot greener than Vienna. Therefore, the wildlife in Vienna surprised me a lot: I've see badgers, martens, snakes, owl, rabits, a fox and many other animals.
I loved that documentary about that hamster, tried to eat candle wax from the cemetery, and got its head stuck in it. It was so cute....and the narration was just perfect.
I love when animals can live wild in their best life.
That's such an amazing and important job! It's so rare to see footage like this, and it's always important for people to see it. In our case, for example, we focused on snow leopards. There are only a few thousand individuals left in the wild, and snow leopards are rarely captured on camera … until recently when our film crew got some incredible footage of a mom with two cubs. They followed the family over several months, and we managed to share this cute adventure with everyone out there.
What a beautiful place to hamster habitat, i never encountered something like this in my live hahahahaha, wonderfull
Wow how adorable. Seeing those little cute cheeks brightened my day. The Hamsters were pretty cool and cute too 😁.
Truly they are such sweet little rodents. These wild Hampsters are able to carve out their individual borrows. Thankfully these areas will remain relatively untouched. Allowing the cute Hampsters a chance to live a peaceful life. 💪🏻🙏🏻✨
There are these soft, wild furballs digging up the routes to our ancestors and here we are fighting for petty things, I think we can still learn from them.
it's sweet that they get to rest in a beautiful cemetery when it's time for them to go
If you look a little after seven minutes you will see a hamster eating the flowers next to her
I watched the video for two main reasons...1 - To see how animals have adapted so well in our backyards and 2 - To see this lady smile.
What a nice place to be buried in
Hopefully, you're ok with at least a fig leaf to make it less uncomfortable for the people who come to morn your passing.
If you are in the US, human composting is becoming legal in more states and might be your kind of thing. I hope to go that way.
@@Primalxbeast yeah, that would be awesome haha
@@granitemoss1451 Sadly I'm from South America, only some natives have permission to bury their dead outside of paid cemeteries :( my partner is like 12% native, so maybe I can do it trough him, I hope I have plenty of time left to figure that out tho haha
This was brilliant! Hannah’s enthusiasm and excitement for all creatures makes for such joyful viewing
I've had driving jobs for the majority of my working life and have always been on the lookout for the living creatures that inhabit our paved world. My top 3 urban encounters are a stop light bird's nest, a squrrel powerline roadway bridge and the best, 2 peregrine falcons cooling off in the spray of lawn sprinklers on a hot ( San Joaquin Valley) California summer's day. I wish I had a camera ready for each of these encounters but sadly I am at work and have only my memory to go by.
Greetings from Vienna. Not just graveyards, we have them in gardens too. And red squirrels.
I'm from Vienna and I had no idea about this! Thanks for sharing. It's horrible how every square meter in Europe other than cemeteries is being made inhospitable by humans.
It's kind of funny to think that rats are very much like hamsters but people's reaction to rats in the cemetery would be radically different.
Reminds me of a Carrie line from Sex and the City, " Squirrels are just rats in cuter outfits!" :)
This could be unintentional ASMR & I love it! Cute & incredibly interesting lil hamsters. 😁
My lord, Hannah is absolutely beautiful.! Hamsters are adorable as I've always had hamsters.... Honestly, domestic rats are some of the best pets.
I am living in the 10th district of vienna and see wild hamsters quite often. Behind my residential house there is a park where they are scurrying around.
BBC finally producing something informative, fun and not condescending.
30 cm is huge! The largest hamsters I've ever seen are maybe a third of that
This species is the European Hamster, the largest species of hamster in the world.
In Poland we have a lot of red squirrells on the cementaries. I see them almost every time I go. They are not even scared of people that much.
Oh, to be a hamster in a graveyard. Maybe if I cultivate enough positive karma, I will be reincarnated as one. 😂 This is too cute!! ❤️
São tão adoráveis!! Há quem tenha medo dos mortos ...mas os hamesters têm mais medo dos vivos e adaptram-se a este habitat...que os protege como espécie!! Inteligentes ... e beleza não lhes falta!
Pure joy in her face! And I understand it 🙂
What an amazing and beautiful creature. Hamsters are pretty dope too.
I never thought about Hamsters beyond them being pets you see at the pet store. Fascinating.
These are quite a bit larger than the pet-store variety - though their *irritable* disposition is quite similar…
@@dennisyoung4631these are a different species, there are over 10 species of hamsters I believe, the ones we find in captivity are : Winter White Dwarf Hamster, Campbells Russian dwarf, Chinese Dwarf Hamster , Syrian ( largest pet ) hamster and I believe there is another , but Winter Whites and Campbells are often mixed togther and it’s rare to find a pure campbells or winter white, which is unfortunate as hybrids are prone to things like diabetes
@@foxesproject5031 roborovskii dwarf hamster
@@smievil oh yeah ! I forgot them
Gah! Too adorable!
The colours of the fur are so beautiful and perfect for nature. I hope we can help the population to recover.
Hannah your excitement and love for Nature and animals is so heart-warming..Thank you for you. ❤🧡💛💚💙💜
I’m loving these small critters
Charming! Her warmth & enthusiasm was lovely
That’s almost a foot long? Holy crap!
Wild hamsters are just something entirely special, lol. They're like next level cute.
I wish I could live every day as excited as this lady is about hamsters.
She is so excited and it makes this video even better
I love hamsters so much
Those hamsters are so cute, beautiful and they literary stand out, never seen such before. They thrive :)
I hope we see more hampters in Vienna. Cute lil rascals they are.
Awesome~👍 Thank you for sharing this video~🤗
She's so engaged and beautiful
Living my dream, seeing wild hamsters as it should be - love it.
So beautiful. If there was a fraction of open space here in Oklahoma they would build a Walmart on it. Disgusting
U said it!
This is one of the cutest things I've ever seen!! 🥹
beautiful colors on your star hamster - delightful to see them thrive in the peace of this beautiful cemetery-
I am an animal lover, and I have had a number of Hamsters as pets when I was a little lad, and I have seen some beautiful hamsters in my days, and these guys are so cute and unique because I have never seen a caramel colored hamster with a black belly before! There are tens of thousands of caramel hamsters in the pet market but none with a black belly! these guys are not only super cute, but they are BIG, in comparison to the pet hamsters. However, I still think that the Siberian Dwarf Hamster is still my favorite, with it's arctic white belly and a black stripe from nose to tail, they are totally adorable! It's just too bad that they have such a limited life span. Tiny creatures do not live very long, sad to say. But these European wild hamsters ARE definitely cute with their black aprons! LOL
It's great to hear that you're an animal lover and have had experience with owning pet hamsters. It's also interesting to hear about the unique characteristics of the wild hamsters in Vienna, including their caramel color and black belly. As you mentioned, hamsters come in a variety of colors and patterns, each with its own unique charm and appeal.
I have never seen hamsters that huge before. Holy smokes, I thought they were pygmy guinea pigs.
This species (European Hamster) is the largest species of hamster in the world.
All those animals are cute. They're proof that nature is always victorious against the developing human settlings. Thank you for sharing!
These hamsters are also living in Limburg, a Province in the Netherlands.
Wow.. She's beautiful.
Aww.... they're like little spirit animals that form from all the love people place on the graves ;w;
How awesome is that❤️🥰I could sit on a bench there and watch them all day long
I love their COLORING especially that jet black underside. Too bad domesticated ones don't look like that, nor be as BIG.
Yes, the coloring of the wild hamsters in Vienna is certainly unique and striking, especially with the jet black underside. Domesticated hamsters often have different coloring and markings, as they have been selectively bred for certain traits. Size is another factor that can vary between wild and domesticated hamsters. Wild hamsters are adapted to their natural habitats and have evolved to meet the demands of their environment, which can sometimes result in larger or smaller body size. Domesticated hamsters, on the other hand, have been bred for specific traits and may have different body size and proportions as a result.
Hamsters are so cute and even the word itself - hamster - so funny. Graveyard zombie hamsters are gorgeous! 😁
FINALLY. ive been googling wild hamsters but never got the right video. Thank you!
I just received a hamster from my dad yesterday 😂😂😂😂 cute little thing they run and climb like crazy at night
Great video! I couldn't get over the variety of markings on the hamsters. The one in the last shot with the black belly was very distinctive.
Those are gang tattoos. don't be fooled.
just so darn cute!! i loved this. thank you!
I loved this! The music at my end was my favorite part. ❤
Beautiful
Love the enthusiasm! I would have never guessed they were there!
Amazing video! I’ve visited this graveyard a few years ago, but no idea there are so many animals living there
Prime real estate, the neighbors are dead quiet!
Cuuuute little hammies 🐹
Aww, I'm so here for this kind of content
So cute and lovely. Hamsters are nice too.
This is delightful 😍 wild hammies!!!
This was more about a photographer smiling at the camera than about wild hamsters.
More Hannah than hamsters it seems - I agree. Not even D. Attenborough would allow himself to be inserted into the narrative this much. Overall, an annoying edit, shall we say?
I've had and have currently got a hamster as a pet, brilliant little animals. Amazing how different looking the wild european hamster is to the syrian one that I have.
Ghost: Are you here to pay your respects? Hamster: You could say that.
What do you mean, no body around. There's three million bodies all around you. Lovely pics of one of the cutest of creatures.
This video is so heartwarming
Love their black bellies! That would be a really fun variation in domestic hamsters.