Courtesy of the fine folks at msnbc.com comes this strange tale of friendship found in the oddest of places.

“TOKYO - Gohan and Aochan make strange bedfellows: one’s a 3.5-inch dwarf hamster; the other is a yard-long rat snake.

Zookeepers at Tokyo’s Mutsugoro Okoku zoo presented the hamster — whose name means “meal” in Japanese — to Aochan as a tasty morsel in October, after the snake refused to eat frozen mice.

But instead of indulging, Aochan decided to make friends with the furry rodent, according to keeper Kazuya Yamamoto. The pair have shared a cage since.”

Certainly, the oddest pairing of opposites since Carville and Matlin.

EDIT: I won’t say which is the snake… but I can tell you which one is Gollum.