Domestic Herps - Some Food for Thought

Domestic Herps - Some Food for Thought
Reprinted from Notes from Noah, the newsletter of the Northern Ohio Association of Herpetologists, Vol.32, No.8

Webster's Dictionary defines a domestic animal as:
Any of various animals domesticated by man so as to live and breed in a tame condition.
Domesticate: To adapt (an animal or plant) to life in intimate association with and to the advantage of man.
Tame: Reduced from a state of native wildness, especially so as to be tractable and useful to man.
Tractable: Capable of being easily led, taught, or controlled.

A recent issue of Critters® Magazine says that "In order for an animal to be considered domesticated, the following three criteria must be met:
Humans control the breeding, including which individual animal breeds with what other individual and when.
There must be some type of human mediated intent for the animal -- something definite desired. It might be for the animal to be tamed or larger in size, or to have a certain color of fur or type of coat.
Something must have changed in the animal through selective breeding so that it is no longer exactly like the animal in the wild.... Domestication should not be confused with tameness."
While preparing a recent presentation on domestic creatures, I began to think about some common herps. The current colors and patterns of leopard geckos are certainly not something seen in the wild - they are bred for man's use (pets), and I would imagine they are also being bred for hardiness, ease of captive care, and tameness (the poor-doers and nasty ones are culled out or die). Likewise corn snakes have been bred since the 1960' s and at least one breeder is said to produce over 5000 of them annually. Surely there are more than 20 corn snake varieties available, some never seen in the wild. Bearded dragons seem to be very social animals and unafraid of humans in captivity, as well as being available in numerous color patterns. Perhaps a case could be made for California king snake domestication, as well as crested geckos, rosy boas, boa constrictors, and ball pythons. Note that neither definition above gives a time required for domestication. Nor do the definitions require a domestic creature to be able to fetch your slippers or be trainable. Several species or groups have their own packaged foods, commercially available vitamins, leashes, caging, lighting, heating, substrates, and hide boxes from manufacturers like Rep-Cal, Zoo Med, Exoterra, Nekton, Repti Sun, and T-Rex. Fancy Publications, publishers of Reptiles magazine, also publishes Dog Fancy and Cat Fancy magazines.

There are clubs and societies all over the country dedicated to care and culture of a variety of captive herps. The next time you see that proposed legislation banning exotic pets, ask yourself whether some of our herps are "exotic" or "domestic."

If dogs, cats, canaries, and chickens were currently in the process of domestication, would folks be a permitted to keep them? Dogs (wolf descendants) annually kill a number of people in the United States, even after all those years of domestication. House cats, which are descendants of small, solitary, wild species, can transmit diseases to people (pregnant ladies, beware of cleaning that cat litter box) and are responsible for killing large numbers of wild bird species. Birds and their eggs can transmit disease, including salmonellosis. It would be really tough to domesticate any of these species today!

Based on research in books and the internet, I have found the information presented below on domestication times for a variety of animals. Years are not exact, as domestication time could be counted either when the animals are first brought into captivity, first have a relationship with humans, or first are in common use for pets, lab animals, beasts of burden, food, etc.

Some Animal Species and Number of Years Since They Have Been Brought Into Captivity Dog* (h) 135,000 - inconclusive evidence, possibly much less
Cow # 5800
Horse # 5000
Cat* 5000
Guinea Pig 4000
Mouse 3000
Ferret # or * 2500
Chinchilla 2000
Aesculapian Snake & 2000
Goldfish 1700
Rabbit 1000
Canary 500
Rat 200
Parakeet (budgie) 160
Zebra Finch 150
Guppy 80
Hamster 75 (35 for dwarf)
Gerbil 70
Corn Snake 40
African Pygmy Hedgehog (h) 20
Ball Python 12
Crested Gecko 10 (in 1993, 30,000 captive bred in U.S.)
Sugar Glider 8


All of the above have captive bred mutations available.

* Domestic animals - a different species from that in the wild.
# Domestic subspecies no longer in wild.
(h) domestic version may be hybrid between wild forms.
& This is a European rat snake that was carried to health spas by Greeks and Romans, probably resulting in range extensions. I have not found data that they were captive bred, but it is quite possible.

Notes: Time in captivity was based on information from a variety of sources, including the internet. Additional/conflicting information is welcome. Earliest date bred in captivity was based on any usage, in many cases for lab research. Hamsters and several others were used in research for a number of years before entering the pet market. Additional fish types could have been added.

Freshwater parrotfish, farm raised catfish, and many freshwater aquarium fish could certainly be considered domestic. At this time, saltwater clownfish (think "Nemo") are commercially bred for the pet trade. Arachnids are also bred, although captive populations are all fairly recent. Consider some of the parasitic wasps and other insects bred to combat insect crop pests and, of course, the honeybee.

Anyone else have a nomination for a domestic herp (one agreeing with the definitions supplied above)? How about additional domestication definitions from published sources?