Blue Crab of PAIN!!!
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Hello again everyone!
I am currently reading through The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. I just got through a section that discusses animal domestication and the Soviet Domesticated Silver Fox. As per this topic, the important facts pointed out in this book are how quickly a wild species of animal became a legitimately domesticated species and how great the changes were.
In short, you got from a normal, wily red fox (actually I'm not sure if they started with Red, they may have started with already silver strains) with all the bad smells, flighty temperament and all, and in about 50 years ended up with an animal that was every bit as good as a dog. It even started to look more like a dog than a fox too.
There are a few topics on this forum about domestication but I didn't notice anything really specific pertaining to the potential tegus and other reptiles may have to, under artificial selection, really become an almost entirely different animal.
How far and how quickly do you think a population of carefully pedigreed tegus can become truly domesticated, if at all? I'd personally love to see a legitimately domesticated reptile hit the market, intelligent AND well suited to human interaction (and is thus less likely to end up in an animal shelter).
If this CAN work for tegus, what about other reptiles like Green Iguanas and Chinese Alligators?
I am currently reading through The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. I just got through a section that discusses animal domestication and the Soviet Domesticated Silver Fox. As per this topic, the important facts pointed out in this book are how quickly a wild species of animal became a legitimately domesticated species and how great the changes were.
In short, you got from a normal, wily red fox (actually I'm not sure if they started with Red, they may have started with already silver strains) with all the bad smells, flighty temperament and all, and in about 50 years ended up with an animal that was every bit as good as a dog. It even started to look more like a dog than a fox too.
There are a few topics on this forum about domestication but I didn't notice anything really specific pertaining to the potential tegus and other reptiles may have to, under artificial selection, really become an almost entirely different animal.
How far and how quickly do you think a population of carefully pedigreed tegus can become truly domesticated, if at all? I'd personally love to see a legitimately domesticated reptile hit the market, intelligent AND well suited to human interaction (and is thus less likely to end up in an animal shelter).
If this CAN work for tegus, what about other reptiles like Green Iguanas and Chinese Alligators?