Hamster, snake best friends at Tokyo zoo

Hamster, snake best friends at Tokyo zoo: "Hamster, snake best friends at Tokyo zoo

(AP Photo/Mutsugoro Okoku Zoo, Kyota Nomura) :: Hamster named Gohan, right, and snake Aochan live togther in a cardboard box at Mutsugoro Okoku zoo, outskirts of Tokyo, in this January 14, 2006 photo.

By Associated Press
Updated: 01/18/06

TOKYO

Gohan, a dwarf hamster, was supposed to be an afternoon snack for Aochan, a rat snake, but instead the two became fast friends.

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Gohan and Aochan make strange bedfellows: one's a 3.5-inch dwarf hamster; the other is a 120 yard-long rat snake. 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."