Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a wild-looking and ferocious creature for a pet? Imagine if your new pet lion cub could come with assurances that they are ‘owner friendly’ and not ‘owner hungry’. Animals which have been selectively domesticated in the past for thousands of years have shown many mutations in their colour and general appearance, but less obviously and perhaps less intentionally have also experienced mutations in their behaviour and ability to be domesticated.
New research is investigating exactly which genes have been altered over generations to produce more user-friendly pets. In an experiment performed on rats, more than 60 generations were bred selectively into lines with the most friendly and lines with the most aggressive traits. Some 700 animals were tested across 201 genetic markers in this experiment. Results indicated that the ‘tame’ group of animals sometimes developed white spotting on their coat, which was not observed in the ‘aggressive’ group. However, evidence was not strong enough in this experiment to draw conclusions on which genes are responsible for an animal’s tameness, though there was some suggestion in the data that genetics are partly responsible for an animal’s tameness. Further and more exact research and testing is required before any application could be made for mammals, so a little pet Simba may still be a while off yet.
From article:msohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"> Albert, FW, Carlborg, O, Plyusnina, I et.al. 2009, ‘Genetic architecture of tameness in a rat model of animal domestication’, Genetics, vol. 182, no. 2, viewed 4 September 2009,
