© Uwe Anspach / DPA / AFP
Hamsters used to enjoy a varied diet of grains, insects and roots, but as their habitats have increasingly evolved into to large, industrial fields of corn, they aren't getting the same variety, which leads to a deficit in vitamins.
"There's clearly an imbalance," said Gerard Baumgart, president of the Research Centre for Environmental Protection in Alsace. "Our hamster habitat is collapsing."
Scientists examined the impact of diet on the wild hamsters and made some disturbing discoveries.
Different groups of hamsters were fed a diet of corn and wheat. The hamsters that ate the wheat weaned 80 percent of their babies, while those who ate corn only saw 5 percent of their offspring weaned.
The reason so few made it was that the mothers "stored their pups with their hoards of maize before eating them," the scientists said. "Pups were still alive at that time."
