Are ball pythons a domesticated species?

[Myenia]

Haven't read the pages and pages of other responses, but-

Dogs are domesticated, cats are partly domesticated. There is a difference between tame and domesticated- BPs are tame (at least, some are). Domesticated implies that the animal as a species is what it is because of human tampering (in the case of keeping). Dogs are not natural, they're a result of selective breeding of wolves by humans, and they are neotanized. They are not naturally occurring. Neither are house cats, but they are far newer and less domesticated. Snakes are not domesticated.

[Deacon240]

They are docile and tame, not domesticated, dont think they have the mental capacity to ever become domesticated either. They are more tamed by being brought up in an environment that conditions them to accept this living style as what they should do and expect.

[CoolioTiffany]

Domestic animals are allowed to roam around a home or place with humans and are trained to do things such as go outside to go to the bathroom, sit, stay, use the litter box, etc.

Exotic animals stay in cages, pretty much. Their entire lives they have to stay in cages or they will escape and get loose.

[iCandiBallPythons]

Very simple answer...no BP's are not a domesticated animal.

[WingedWolfPsion]

Just note--dogs were not selectively bred by humans in any deliberate fashion. Their ancestors simply scavenged the leavings from groups of humans, and the ones that were less aggressive were tolerated and allowed to come closer--so they got more food, and were more successful. Thus, the domestication of the dog was more of an evolution of the dog to take better advantage of us, not us making the dog into something we wanted. Dogs are superb 'nest parasites'--they have learned us so well that we treat them like our own children--we feed and care for them, and it's all because they look cute, pay attention to us, and occasionally help us out.

Cats are fully domesticated animals. So are ferrets, lab rats, lab mice, domestic rabbits, chickens, cows, horses, farm pigs, goats, sheep, etc. The primary traits that set domestic animals apart from wild animals are an inherent reduction in aggression toward humans, and the ability to pay attention to and respond to human body language cues. Domestic animals are more passive, less nervous, and 'friendlier'. The neotenous traits and coat color variations they show appear to be a natural result of breeding for reduced human aggression. Whether it occurred naturally or was done deliberately by humans, the result is the same.

See the fox fur farm experiments for details--a domesticated breed of foxes was created, and it took surprisingly little time (only 40 years!), and came with MANY unexpected side effects.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/807641/posts

This article also demonstrates why ball pythons aren't domesticated. That is not to say that we can't domesticate them! In fact, I encourage it. Don't just breed for looks--breed for temperament, and do it consistently. With selective breeding for temperament over the next 100 to 150 years, we should produce a significantly different animal--one that is far more trustworthy and consistent in its behavior, one that is better adapted to captive conditions--yes, one that is in fact domesticated. It will be better for reptile owners, and it will be better for the snakes themselves. There is no reason to 'keep them wild'--they will never go back to the wild, they and their offspring will always be captive. Changing them to be better pets can only benefit them.

[Soterios]

I vote no.

We still accommodate them, not the other way around. That's domestication.

[omnibus2]

Thus, the domestication of the dog was more of an evolution of the dog to take better advantage of us, not us making the dog into something we wanted.

Really? So we didn't selectively breed dogs for traits we wanted? I suppose the pointer dogs evolved to retrieve ducks as an advantage, rather than humans selectively breeding them to be better at doing chores for us.


Back on the topic, ball pythons are simply not domesticated. However, it's not out of the realm of possibility that through the numerous captive bred generations, a number of ball pythons have became ever so slightly more used to humans.

[PyramidPythons]

I had to vote no as well. I am not 100% sure that it would be possible to domesticate any reptile species. Sure they become used to us humans, and many of them are as tame as the dogs and/or cats that we keep, but there are just too many other criteria that don't fit right.

[WingedWolfPsion]

Omnibus--Of course we selectively bred dogs for a variety of purposes. We just didn't deliberately DOMESTICATE them. That happened as a result of natural human and dog interaction over time, not through a deliberate course of actions by either species. They evolved to become domesticated, in order to become the symbiotic species they are today. The original dogs looked much like dingos, much like feral dogs everywhere today--the medium-sized yellow dog. That's the natural dog prior to all selective breeding.

[Egapal]

Omnibus--Of course we selectively bred dogs for a variety of purposes. We just didn't deliberately DOMESTICATE them. That happened as a result of natural human and dog interaction over time, not through a deliberate course of actions by either species. They evolved to become domesticated, in order to become the symbiotic species they are today. The original dogs looked much like dingos, much like feral dogs everywhere today--the medium-sized yellow dog. That's the natural dog prior to all selective breeding.

All of this may be true but it may not be true. The problem with saying definitely one way or the other is that all we have to go on is fossils and modern genetics, fossils don't tell us much about how DOMESTICATED a species was or wasn't and the genetic record is muddied by thousands of years of selective breeding. That selective breeding makes it very hard to tell what actually happened with dogs. Its hotly debated to this day when, where and with what base species dogs were domesticated. Some even believe that the modern dog is the result of the domestication of 2 or 3 wild dogs species. At the end of the day I would have to agree that DOMESTICATION was just something that happened. Dogs were prone to it and so were humans. This can easily be seen in how easily a wild wolf can be integrated into a human family. Wolf hybrids being even easier and less than 1/4 wolf is basically a dog.