Thursday, May 05, 2005

Vomiting Ferrets?


Fidgett the ferret (maybe it's Waffles the ferret... i don't know them so I can't tell) from ToyKeeper.net. Images used without permision



Today while hanging out with some of my smart friends, I learned randomly that ferrets apparently are used in lot of research for nausea and vomitting. I thought this to be rather strange. I also began to have images of a cage some where with liitle piles of ferret vomit in the corners.

I began also to wonder why this is. So I went to our friend the internet...


Most animal research on nausea is performed on ferrets, apparently one step up the evolutionary tree from rodents, which do not vomit.

-- From Palliative Care Perspectives, James L. Hallenbeck, M.D.

1 comment:

Squirrelman said...

Ferrets are not related to rodents as you implied. They are carnivores, and are distant cousins of dogs and cats. They eat rodents.