Post-castration retention of reproductive behavior and olfactory preferences in male Siberian hamsters: role of prior experience.

Reproductive behavior of virtually all adult male rodents is dependent on concurrent availability of gonadal steroids. The ejaculatory reflex is incompatible with long-term absence of testicular steroids and typically disappears within 3 weeks after castration. Male Siberian hamsters are an exception to this rule; mating culminating in the ejaculatory reflex occurs as many as 6 months after castration (persistent copulation).

Sex differences in the onset of seasonal reproductive quiescence in hamsters.

Day length is the primary cue used by many mammals to restrict reproduction to favourable spring and summer months, but it is unknown for any mammal whether the seasonal loss of fertility begins at the same time and occurs at the same rate in females and males; nor it established whether the termination of mating behaviour in males and females coincides with the loss of fertility. We speculated that females, owing to their greater energetic investment in reproduction, are the limiting sex in terminating offspring production in short days (SDs). Oestrous cycles and production of young were monitored in Syrian hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) transferred from long days (LDs) to SDs.

Interval timer control of puberty in photoinhibited Siberian hamsters.

Puberty, which is markedly delayed in male Siberian hamsters (Phodopus sungorus) born into short day lengths, is controlled by an interval timer regulated by the duration of nocturnal melatonin secretion. Properties of the interval timer were assessed by perturbing normal patterns of melatonin secretion in males gestated and maintained thereafter in 1 of 2 short day lengths, 10 h light/day (10 L) or 12L. Melatonin secretion of short-day hamsters was suppressed by constant light treatment or modified by daily injection of propranolol to mimic nocturnal melatonin durations typical of long-day hamsters.