And Now There's Only One!

BASHFUL TROTTERDONKEY ROBOROVSKI IS DEAD! The virus finally got her. She died on Friday but I wasn't around to post it. Spherical alerted me to the strangeness by determinedly moving nest from under the cod-in-parsley-sauce box under their wheel to under the chewed out chocolate fingers box. It is quite odd to see such a tiny creature behaving so purposefully. Grabbing mouthfuls of self-chewed bedding material and scampering to a new nest that's getting more and more luxuriously padded by the minute. Something suspiciously two-toned harvesty-coloured and white caught my eye and then I realized it was Bashful looking very dead and very bashed up. Imagine a dead cat that's been through a washing machine spin cycle and you're on the right track. I was wondering what on earth had prompted her into that corner when Spherical very officiously grabbed her dead housemate by the scruff and dragged her bodily halfway across the tank and into the her new bedding, where she took to preening her fur (not too successfully it has to be said as poor dead Bashful still looks like she's been dragged through several hedges backwards).

I was wondering whether this is some sort of strange roborovski death ritual, keeping the late cagemate in bed. So I did an experiment and moved Bashful back to where I'd found her only for Spherical to grab her once again and determinedly drag her back ~ within a few minutes.

Last night, Spherical was moving nest yet again. Sure enough poor Bashful had vanished from under the chocolate fingers box, round several very inconvenient (by roborovski standards) cage obstacles and into the cod in parsley sauce box. I took Bashful out yet again and hid her in the furthest corner. This just so happened to be at the far entrance to a very long and narrow tube that originally held a roll of clingwrap. Imagine my shock to witness Spherical grabbing poor Bashful by the back leg and hauling her right through this long, thin tube right back to the new nest again!

I didn't have the heart to remove the body when Spherical seems to enjoy "looking after it" so. I was thinking maybe in the wild, because they do of course live in burrows, they do make a special nest for dead housemates and let them rot into the ground right there.

Tomorrow I'm having the official funeral, next to Itchy in Mother Hubbard's strawberry patch. My Mum says Spherical, who came out on cue and started rambling ostentatiously on her wheel, is very pretty. She even let me stroke her without feigning horrific shock, pinging away and hiding under the cardboard sill of a box from where, when she's so inclined, she would glare at me with the most baleful black beady eyes I've ever seen.

One left! Poor Spherical ~ all on her own. I hope yous all had a good weekend... Evening all!!