Are ball pythons a domesticated species?

[Egapal]

WOW

I don't see that at all in many animals that have long been considered to be 'domesticated' Even a quick glance at most poultry will show that many of the ducks, geese or turkeys are NOT significantly different then their wild counterparts. In some cases, not even the paint job is different. The only difference being that some of them are living in the wild, and some of them are living in farmyards... Physically, many of them are identical.

Ducks, geese, and turkey are like ball pythons, very easy to keep. The ones that are signifigantly altered from their wild counterparts are domestic the others are not. If you do a little research you will find that domestic poultry is different than their wild counterparts. Domestic ducks for instance are larger and the males and females look much more alike than wild ducks.

People who keep poultry will tell you that there is a difference and the differences are examples of domestication.

Actually, animals are NOT wild until proven otherwise... I think that the main criteria should be WHERE THEY ARE FOUND IN THE FIRST PLACE....... I tend to think of animals FOUND in the wild as wild animals, however I tend to think of animals FOUND in my basement where I have been breeding, feeding and caring for them through many generations to NOT be wild animals.

This is just silly. If you truely believe that a tiger in a zoo is domestic than we should just not talk about this anymore.

I've re-read my posts, and I don't see where you can even make the assumptions that you are. No, I DON'T 'really disagree with the assertion that they are not domestic' at all. That's YOUR preconceived notions that are coloring your comments. I've merely been questioning why people have been SO adamant that their snakes are wild animals. It seems to me that the main reason people have been putting forth the argument that ball pythons are NOT domesticated, is because they don't WANT them to be domesticated and for no other reason. I have not heard a reasonable argument on EITHER side of the argument about why they either should or should not be considered domesticated. Personally I would rather not label them either way until I have a more thorough understanding of what 'domestication' actually is.......

I have to agree with ZinniaZ on this one. There have been many great reasons given why they are not domestic. Since you are arguing the reasons point by point I am not sure how you can say there aren't. I will concede that I am assuming that you believe they are domestic and that procncieved notion is coloring my arguments. I apologize.

And I would put forth that this IS a good reason to suspect that they are a domesticated species. You can NOT selectively breed wild animals. Wild animals will choose their own mates. Only a domesticated animal could be forced to mate with another that was not of it's own choosing.

You can selectively breed wild animals. Its actually the process called domestication. Wild animals are bred in captivity all the time. Lions, tigers, and bears, will all breed in captivity and are not domestic, oh my.

See my earlier statement on poultry. Many of the accepted 'domesticated' lines can not be differentiated from their wild counterparts. The only difference is in their upbringing. The only real difference between captive bred ball pythons and captive bred turkeys is that turkeys have been bred in captivity for a few hundred years longer. In any kind of evolutionary timeline, that's extremely insignificant.

Once again domestication is not a black and white thing. There are signifigant difference between wild turkeys and domestic ones. Size, build and behavior are the important ones. The amount of time spent domesticating the animal is not the only factor to consider. The number of generations, number of offspring, and scale of the project are all very important. The number of BP born in captivity without introducing wild genetics is unbelievably minuscule when compared to the efforts to domesticate turkeys.

Well, except for maybe cornsnakes, kingsnakes, and several dozen other species of colubrids that have been captive bred for over a dozen generations.

Non of the snakes you mentioned differ any more from wild snakes than BPs. I think that the BP trait of balling as a defense mechanism helps their flimsy case for being accepted as domesticated.