Voles and hamsters | Cricetidae

Woelmuizen en hamsters | Topillos y hámsteres

Two body plans under one roof. The voles and lemmings have a blunt muzzle, small eyes, ears sunk in the fur and a short tail; their cheekteeth consist of prisms of enamel meeting in a zigzag, rootless in most species and growing throughout life — which is what makes a diet of grass, with its load of silica, possible. They dig shallow runs and follow fixed paths through the vegetation, where clipped stems and green droppings give them away. The hamsters are larger, with roomy cheek pouches in which food is carried to a burrow with separate store, nest and latrine chambers, and they sleep through the winter in alternating spells. What marks the family is numbers: vole and lemming populations swell several-fold over a few years and then collapse, and the predators that live on them rise and fall with them.