Selective Breeding:Behavior/Character

[cerastes]

I read this in a book on corns : "Evolution can be sped up through selective breeding for calmness..."

Is this true? It just seems to me that when you are doing selective breeding you are looking at genes. As far as I know though agression (or lack there of) is not a heredity trait. Am I wrong? Have any of you ever heard of this?

::shrug:: I don't know, I just thought that was an interesting statement.

 

[Susan]

Personally, I think that although things like aggression are more influenced by environmental conditions, some genetics are involved in those non-physical characteristics. This has been fairly well proven in the different dog breeds. Yes, you can have "good and bad" in any breed, but some breeds, which are selectively bred genetic variations on the domestic dog, are noted for being exceptionally calm, such as Labradors, or high-strung, like Dalmatians, or aggressive, like Rottweilers. So I guess the same can be done in snakes.

 

[Nanci]

Wild snakes temperments vary by species, too. A wild corn probably isn't going to bite on its first human contact, a yellow rat probably is. A rough green won't, a black racer will. I've read that blood pythons, when first popular in the hobby, were very nasty, and now they say that successive generations of captive bred snakes have become considerably more tractable.

 

[bryanc]

Check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tame_Silver_Fox

They domesticated the silver fox and found out some interesting things about tameness.