Remember the pictures of Gabriël’s new hamster some time ago?
Well, about a week ago, Gabriël showed me his hamster, saying that it looked different. It had a black stripe from one eye to another, and he didn’t think it was there before. Good thing I took pictures in January, making it easy to compare. And indeed – the colour of its face had changed.
I planned to take pictures of it for this blog, but forgot about it again, until today. So I took some pictures, and noticed that the black stripe had mostly disappeared again, but the entire hamster looked different now. See for yourself:
Yes, it really is the same hamster. All 4 pictures 
On the left the hamster was 8 weeks old, on the right 18 weeks. Apparently, these hamsters are known for their colour changes, caused by the length of daylight.
Looking for more information, I found one website that says some Russian Campbell Dwarfs change into a white wintercoat during the wintermonths, while another claims that those changing into white are not Campbells, but Winter Whites.
Quoting www.hamsterific.com:
Russian Campbell’s Dwarfs come in a variety of colors that are often confused as being Winter Whites. Winter Whites only come in the normal (agouti), Pearl, and Sapphire Blue. The biggest difference between the two is that Winter Whites will actually change their coat from normal (agouti), Pearl, or Sapphire Blue, to solid white with black ticking and black dorsal stripe. This happens about once a year. Russian Campbell’s will not change into a yearly white coat.
Somehow, the following quote from a more scientifically oriented website sounds more plausible to me:
The Russian Dwarf Hamster, scientifically known as Phodopus sungorus, is a distant relative of the common domestic Golden (or Syrian) Hamster, Mesocricetus auratus. Common names of the species also include Siberian Dwarf Hamster, Winter White Hamster, Djungarian Hamster, Campbell’s Dwarf Hamster, and Hairy-Footed Dwarf Hamster. For the sake of clarity, it will be referred to in this article simply as the the Russian Dwarf Hamster.
and
Under natural lighting conditions, some Russian Hamsters will turn partially or completely white in the winter months. There is disagreement over whether these are a true subspecies or just a local race. The “Winter White” hamsters seem to be browner in overall color and the non-changing ones seem to have more of a grey tone.
The funny thing is, that Gabriël’s hamster certainly changed colour, but also certainly was rather grey, not brown (imo).
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