Hamster Body Language

In this photo The Professor crawls around in 'normal' mode

It is an unfortunate truth that hamsters, while cute and fuzzy creatures, are also food for other animals. Because of this hamsters can be cautious animals, exploring carefully, attempting to not draw attention to themselves.

If a hamster had three modes (normal, caution, and high alert) these photos would represent the different hamster status.

condition: GREEN

In normal mode, a hamster will crawl around with it's ears perked up. It does feel threatened so it doesn't lower itself to the ground.

condition: YELLOW



Something is not quite right. The indicator is the hamster ears go back. This could be a sign of varying things from just waking up, to being petted, to irritability. If you're attempting to interact with a hamster with ears down be wary of getting bitten especially if the hamster doesn't know you.


Red Alert!

When it's in unfamiliar territory a hamster may squish down to be as low to the ground as possible. This could be considered the hamster stealth mode or red alert mode. The hamster is trying to be as low profile as possible so as not to be