Golden hamster stock of hamsters was exported from Syria to the United States in 1971, but apparently none of today's North American pets is descended from these (at least in the female line), because recent mitochondrial DNA studies have established that all domestic golden hamsters are descended from one female – probably the one captured in 1930 in Syria. Since the species was named, the genus "Cricetus" has been subdivided and this species (together with several others) was separated into the genus "Mesocricetus", leading to the currently accepted scientific name for the golden hamster of "Mesocricetus auratus". Following Professor Aharoni's collection in
Domestication of the Syrian hamster hamsters in the UK. From the UK these hamsters also spread throughout Europe. Albert Marsh of Mobile, Alabama established the commercial hamster industry in the United States in the 1940s. Marsh first got a hamster when he was gambling and won it in a wager. Somehow he got more hamsters after this one, perhaps from the breeding stock managed by Guy Henry Faget in Carville, Louisiana. At the time, Marsh was a highway engineer but unemployed. After getting his hamsters, he learned to breed them and founded Marsh Enterprises and the Gulf Hamstery, which promoted Syrian hamsters as pets, for