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Hamsters can carry almost half their body weight in their cheeks, and now this impressive feat has been caught on camera in an unprecedented way.

Using X-rays, researchers from the BBC filmed a Syrian hamster in cage storing nuts and pieces of fruit in its cheeks.

And when filmed from above, the X-ray footage revealed that the cheeks expand as far back as the animal's hip bones.

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The show explores the 'wide side of playful pets', and also reveals why hamsters love to run on a wheel, how dogs pick up the rules of the pack and how kittens learn to be solitary hunters

The footage will appear on the BBC's 'Pets - Wild at Heart' series, which airs in the UK on BBC One on Wednesday 21 January.

The show explores the 'wide side of playful pets', and also reveals why hamsters love to run on a wheel, how dogs pick up the rules of the pack, and how kittens learn to be solitary hunters.

In addition to the X-ray footage, other shots include plunge-diving dogs and a cat outwitted by his prey.

The latest science also reveals why budgies talk, how a cat scales a vertical wall with the help of a special claw, and the real meaning behind a rabbit's hop.

'Our pets are also given a chance to explore their wild side as we join the free-roaming pet dogs of Cusco Peru, pet rabbits living in a natural warren and the wild-living inhabitants of Cat Island, Japan,' explained the BBC.

'A range of innovative techniques such as moving X-rays, thermal imagery, minicam-carrying dogs and revelatory slow-motion photography shows why our pets play and how their true wild nature is just a whisker away.'

There are five popular species of hamster, including Syrian, Campbell, Chinese, Roborovski and Winter White.

As well as using the pouches to store food, the hamsters use them to transport their pups - and these pouches can stretch to double the width of the animal's head.

X-ray footage shows how hamsters store their nuts

In addition to using the pouches to store food, hamsters also use them to transport their pups - and the pouches can stretch to double the width of the animal's head. The footage will appear on the BBC's 'Pets - Wild at Heart' series, which airs in the UK on BBC One on Wednesday 21 January

This is used to protect the pup from predators, for example. 

But, hamsters have been known to cause suffocation when the infants are kept in the cheeks too long.

The skin is relatively delicate too, and in the same way a balloon becomes thinner as it expands, the hamster's cheek pouches can be easily pierced by sharp objects.

The BBC documentary was filmed with John Downer Productions.

The BBC said: 'A range of innovative techniques such as moving X-rays, thermal imagery, minicam-carrying dogs and revelatory slow-motion photography shows how [our pets] true wild nature is just a whisker away'