Genetics... What defines "domestication"?

[Jaded_Heart]

as defined by the dictionaries:
dictionary.reference.com
domestic animal 
noun
an animal that has been tamed and kept by humans as a work animal, food source, or pet, especially a member of those species that have, through selective breeding, become notably different from their wild ancestors.

http://www.merriam-webster.com
Definition of DOMESTIC ANIMAL
any of various animals domesticated so as to live and breed in a tame condition

Wikipedia
Some exerts in the article DOMESTICATION as follows:

It differs from taming in that a change in the phenotypical expression and genotype of the animal occurs

Humans have brought these populations under their control and care for a wide range of reasons: to produce food or valuable commodities (such as wool, cotton, or silk), for help with various types of work (such as transportation, protection, and warfare), scientific research, or simply to enjoy as companions or ornaments.

OKAY NOW, to the point, given these researched definitions of the term Domestic... is it fair to venture as far as to say that the Corn Snake could be deemed... Domestic?

 

[rainkeltoia]

Considering the definition, I would say some are considered domestic. There's still a decent amount of WC lines coming in from my understanding, but long standing lines would be considered, I think, to be domesticated? Lines that could not survive in the wild without us, for example the blizzard or amel corns, under the definition, would be domesticated. I don't think they are considered in the colloquial sense because they aren't "tame" like a dog or cow. However, I would think that they would be considered as such due to their inability to survive outside of human assistance due to their colors. Doubled with their ability to breed in captivity and live harmoniously with humans without aggression, I would say yes.

 

[Aozora]

I absolutely agree. Through our selective breeding, we have created animals which are not found in the wild and likely would not survive in the wild due to predation and camouflage issues.

As to "tame" reptiles, I'm not sure that's actually possible. I talked about attachment in reptiles in a thread in general discussion, and I think the general consensus of that thread was that their brains and emotions are a little too "primitive" to express the tameness we see in mammal pets.

 

[Jaded_Heart]

As to "tame" reptiles, I'm not sure that's actually possible. I talked about attachment in reptiles in a thread in general discussion, and I think the general consensus of that thread was that their brains and emotions are a little too "primitive" to express the tameness we see in mammal pets.

I agree, although... I have heard a few people talk about how a wild caught corn snake tends to be more defensive, and more flighty, than our captive bred snakes. I am not sure if this is due to environmental conditioning, or if our captive bred animals are somehow actually genetically predisposed to be less defensive and quicker to accept handling by their human keepers?

Any thoughts?

 

[AliCat37]

I think that WC corns just are more flighty because they haven't been handled, seen, smelled, etc people from day one.

However, my personal belief (based off of Temple Grandin's explanations) is that the only truly domesticated animal is the dog. A dog comes to people for help when it cannot figure out an issue. A dog retains baby traits throughout its life, neoteny. It stops developing at the equivalent of a 30 day old wolf pup (what a dog would become if it did not retain infant traits), basically remaining a child forever. Horses, livestock, snakes etc don't retain baby traits. So, in my eyes, they are not domesticated. If we considered snakes as domesticated (based on the definitions above) then white tigers would be too, since they do not occur in nature. Cats, in my eyes, are partially domesticated. They retain only a few traits, like purring, and kneading. But any cat can survive on its own if it were abandoned, most dogs don't.

A snake could easily survive on its own if it were to get out into the wild (given proper habitat). So.. personally I do not believe our corn snakes are domesticated. I don't really even consider them as tame. They are just socialized animals living with us as pets. However, based off the last definition above, they might be considered as domestic. But not with the first definition, as they are not notably different from their wild ancestors. Colors are simple recessive, so are patterns, but the body is the same. Now, put a chihuahua next to a wolf, and you have the prime example of domestication.

 

[rainkeltoia]

I agree, although... I have heard a few people talk about how a wild caught corn snake tends to be more defensive, and more flighty, than our captive bred snakes. I am not sure if this is due to environmental conditioning, or if our captive bred animals are somehow actually genetically predisposed to be less defensive and quicker to accept handling by their human keepers?

Any thoughts?

This is a topic my husband and I have discussed, and I'd be curious if breeding for temperament and not physical color, would we breed calmer snakes? I don't know of any studies where its been done with reptiles, though I am very familiar with one that was done in Russia with foxes in a fur farm where a scientist bought them and bred two groups. A "friendly" group and an aggressive group. They found the aggressive group got more aggro to the point where they would attack the cages whenever people came near their building, and the friendly group attained characteristics more dog-like. They were not bred at all for their looks, simply for their behavior. I'd be curious to see how this plays out with reptiles.

 

[Chip]

I have worked with a collection of wild caught okeetees for years. Their babies are far and away, on average, hatelings. Most of them grow out of it, but it takes some of them two years. I had such a pleasant surprise when I started breeding some morphs! Wow were the babies pleasant and fearless. Now, this is far from scientific, being one person's general observations with a statistically insignificant number of animals, and could have other explanations. But I think enough breeders have selected for attributes that make them good captives that the animal's normal self-preservation has waned. I wouldn't go so far as to call them domesticated, but in my experience with a few hundred babies, my hunch is that either F1 corns are high strung on average, or snakes from Jasper County, SC are.

 

[Susan]

I wouldn't necessarily say that the cb corns are less flightly than wc ones. That is one of the reasons why corn snakes have been kept as pets, their natural docility. I've caught enough very sweet wild corns and have multiple examples of totally psychotic F3 and higher cb corns.

Yes, we have changed the phenotype in regards to color, but nothing more. Plus, it's quite easy to produce corn snakes that look identical to their wild brethren. While a snow or butter corn may have difficulty surviving in the wild because of their color, that is their only handicap. Naturally occurring albinos or non-normal colors of many species is more apt to have a disadvantage when compared to a normal colored specimen (and yes, there are many exceptions, I'm just generalizing).

But man has not really made any other changes to the corn snake as he has done to other domestic species. And yes, some domestic species are closer to their wild origins than others, but domestication takes hundreds to thousands of years generally, not the short time man has been messing with corn snakes. So I say, no, we have not yet domesticated corn snakes.

Here are 5 corn snakes. One is wild caught, 2 are siblings from wc parents, one is the offspring of one of those from wc parents X a motley het anery that had to be at least 2 generations or more cb, and one is at least 3 generations cb, most likely many more (parents were butter X anery stripe). If I didn't know who was who, and I have snakes identical to these that I know are even several more generations cb, I wouldn't be able to tell which was the wild caught. We may have been able to change the phenotype somewhat, but just not enough. One breeding and you're back to square one in that respect, IMO.

 

[Chip]

Susan, would you presume that in breeding calm animals, you can't produce lines of (on average) calm offspring? I get the odd rattlesnake from any pairing, but feel almost certain the parents demeanor is a factor.

 

[Chip]

Oops, "Parent's."

 

[Jaded_Heart]

It happens in the wild, behavioral tendencies. Take rattlesnakes for example. In areas where rattlers are commonly collected for whatever reason, reaserchers are noticing a behavioral tendency for rattlesnakes to... not... rattle. this is because the noisy snakes are removed from the habitat, leaving the more quiet ones to reproduce.

This being said, I imagine you can selectively breed for a calmer less flighty snake.

 

[Chip]

I imagine I've seen it! Of course, that's just it, there's no way to quantify "high strung" other than through our observations. I guess I could measure the distance from the hatchling I have to get before it rattles or something!

 

[BSLMichael]

I think that WC corns just are more flighty because they haven't been handled, seen, smelled, etc people from day one.

However, my personal belief (based off of Temple Grandin's explanations) is that the only truly domesticated animal is the dog. A dog comes to people for help when it cannot figure out an issue. A dog retains baby traits throughout its life, neoteny. It stops developing at the equivalent of a 30 day old wolf pup (what a dog would become if it did not retain infant traits), basically remaining a child forever. Horses, livestock, snakes etc don't retain baby traits. So, in my eyes, they are not domesticated. If we considered snakes as domesticated (based on the definitions above) then white tigers would be too, since they do not occur in nature. Cats, in my eyes, are partially domesticated. They retain only a few traits, like purring, and kneading. But any cat can survive on its own if it were abandoned, most dogs don't.

A snake could easily survive on its own if it were to get out into the wild (given proper habitat). So.. personally I do not believe our corn snakes are domesticated. I don't really even consider them as tame. They are just socialized animals living with us as pets. However, based off the last definition above, they might be considered as domestic. But not with the first definition, as they are not notably different from their wild ancestors. Colors are simple recessive, so are patterns, but the body is the same. Now, put a chihuahua next to a wolf, and you have the prime example of domestication.

Cats are most definately domesticated. There are lots of breed that cannot survive in the wild; Ragdolls, Persians, sphnix, and munchkins just to name a few.
Also, All cats knead and purr, even lions.
And white tigers do occur in the wild. Rarely, but they do. (They have even found adults)

However here is a fun fact about cats... They are the ONLY known animal to self domesticate.

Domestication is not a matter of can they survive without humans. There are SOME dog breeds that can.


I believe there are 3 catagories that most animals kept by humans fall under.
Unnatrually tame, which is the majority of your exotic wildlife kept as pets. (Normally aggressive animals that have been rasied to be accustom to human interaction Example: Pet Lynx) and natrually tame (Animals that typically in the wild don't lash out with aggression and/or are usually even tempered when handling. Example: Most cornsnakes) Then there is domestication (Animals bred over many generations by humans for humans)

I think we all agree that Cattle, pigs, horses, and other various live stock fall under the catagorey of domesticated. Along with dogs and cats.

There are many animals in this process of domestication, one of which being corn snakes.

 

[Susan]

Susan, would you presume that in breeding calm animals, you can't produce lines of (on average) calm offspring? I get the odd rattlesnake from any pairing, but feel almost certain the parents demeanor is a factor.

Oh, I'm sure you can have lines of wonderfully calm corn snakes, but IMO, from the few wild corns I've seen and from what I've heard from many, many others, most wild corns are just as calm as any sweet cb corn. The flighty, high-strung corns are the exception and possibly that too is being inadvertently bred into some lines as well. Sunkissed corns are a perfect example. You do have Sunkisseds with wonderful temperaments, but more than normal are not so nice.

 

[AliCat37]

Michael, I am sorry but I have to disagree. I stated that it is my belief that dogs are the only domesticated species, under that they are the only species to retain many infant traits throughout their life times. Cats only retain a few.

I stated my reasons before, and I am not going to go into it more on the thread, if you'd like to continue the discussion, you may PM me.

 

[AliCat37]

Also, All cats knead and purr, even lions.

And only small cats purr. Lions cannot. :-offtopic

 

[BSLMichael]

And only small cats purr. Lions cannot. :-offtopic

Will do.

 

[Shiari]

This is a topic my husband and I have discussed, and I'd be curious if breeding for temperament and not physical color, would we breed calmer snakes?

This is actually one of my long term projects, to create Sweet Corns. I unfortunately lost the female I intended to use as my matriarch during my protective cull when the single pet store snake came up crypto +, but I still have her parents and will be repeating that breeding. She was super calm and docile out of the egg. She never triangle-headed, rattled, s-coiled or bit. I'm choosing the individuals I keep for breeding by NOT handling them and seeing which ones are the calmest for health checks/feeding time. The second pairing I did, which was Lia's mother Torandre to my almost-sunglow Dier, was the first where I used this selection method though all the *really* nice ones were females!

I do believe it can be done. I bred together two flighty/bitey individuals this year and all 18 babies were psychotic and trying to kill me right out of the egg.

 

[BSLMichael]

This is actually one of my long term projects, to create Sweet Corns. I unfortunately lost the female I intended to use as my matriarch during my protective cull when the single pet store snake came up crypto +, but I still have her parents and will be repeating that breeding. She was super calm and docile out of the egg. She never triangle-headed, rattled, s-coiled or bit. I'm choosing the individuals I keep for breeding by NOT handling them and seeing which ones are the calmest for health checks/feeding time. The second pairing I did, which was Lia's mother Torandre to my almost-sunglow Dier, was the first where I used this selection method though all the *really* nice ones were females!

I do believe it can be done. I bred together two flighty/bitey individuals this year and all 18 babies were psychotic and trying to kill me right out of the egg.

The Domestic Russian Fox project proved that some personality traits can be passed down through the Foxes. I assume the same will be for corn snakes. Interesting things happened with colors and behavior too. I would be really interested in seeing if the same thing happens.

 

[rainkeltoia]

Shiari and elrojo, I think that's wonderful! I'd be so interested in the long term effects, especially your project Shiari. That is exactly what I was thinking! Would you consider starting a progression/project thread to share your findings?