A genetic/evolutionary question:

[xiphias]

In your opinion, have domestic/laboratory rats speciated from wild rats? Their behavior patterns are at least as different as between wolves and dogs, if not more so. They've certainly had enough generations to do so.

So would you consider them distinct species?

Comments

[redbird]

Not without further evidence; for example, when they are put together, do they interbreed?

I note that dogs these days are most often classified as Canis lupus familiaris, as a subspecies of the wolf, rather than as a separate species.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Dogs and wolves interbreed.

Perhaps the question should be whether to consider them different subspecies, then.

But, yeah, you remind me that Felis catus is starting to be re-classified as Felis silvestris catus (and hasn't been Felis domesticus for some time). So that's a similar example.

[(Anonymous)]

I do, ever since i met my first adorable pet rat. That's why many ratkeepers call wild one rats and their pets ratties.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

I'm not that sure that pet/lab brown rats are that different behaviorally from wild brown rats. Back when I was keeping fancy rats and mice, I knew people who raised the occasional orphan wild rat and they didn't seem very different from the pet stock or the lab rescues.