HISTORY
The common guinea pig was first domesticated as early as 5000 BC for food by tribes in the Andean region of South America (present-day the southern part of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia),[8] some thousands of years after the domestication of the South Americancamelids.[9] Statues dating from ca. 500 BC to 500 AD that depict guinea pigs have been unearthed in archaeological digs in Peru and Ecuador.[10] The Moche people of ancient Peru worshipped animals and often depicted the guinea pig in their art.[11] From ca. 1200 AD to the Spanish conquest in 1532, selective breeding resulted in many varieties of domestic guinea pigs, which form the basis for some of the modern domestic breeds.[12] They continue to be a food source in the region; many households in the Andean highlands raise the animal, which subsists off the family's vegetable scraps.[13] Folklore traditions involving guinea pigs are numerous; they are exchanged as gifts, used in customary social and religious ceremonies, and frequently referenced in spoken metaphors.[14] They also play a role in traditional healing rituals by folk doctors, or curanderos, who use the animals to diagnose diseases such as jaundice, rheumatism,arthritis, and typhus.[15] They are rubbed against the bodies of the sick, and are seen as a supernatural medium.[16] Black guinea pigs are considered especially useful for diagnoses.[17] The animal also may be cut open and its entrails examined to determine whether the cure was effective.[18] These methods are widely accepted in many parts of the Andes, where Western medicine is either unavailable or distrusted.[19]
Spanish, Dutch, and English traders brought guinea pigs to Europe, where they quickly became popular as exotic pets among the upper classes and royalty, including Queen Elizabeth I.[8] The earliest known written account of the guinea pig dates from 1547, in a description of the animal from Santo Domingo; because cavies are not native to Hispaniola, it was earlier believed that the animal was likely introduced there by Spanish travelers.[1] However, based on more recent excavations on West Indian islands, it has become known that the animal must have been introduced by ceramic-making horticulturalists from South America to the Caribbean around 500 BC,[20]and it was present in the Ostionoid period, for example, on Puerto Rico,[21] long before the advent of the Spaniards. The guinea pig was first described in the West in 1554 by the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner.[22] Its binomial scientific name was first used by Erxleben in 1777; it is an amalgam of Pallas' generic designation (1766) and Linnaeus' specific conferral (1758).[1] The earliest known illustration of a domestic guinea pig is a painting (artist unknown) in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London, dated to 1580, which shows a girl in typical Elizabethan dress holding a tortoise-shell guinea pig in her hands; she is flanked by her two brothers, one of whom holds a pet bird.[23] The picture dates from the same period as the oldest recorded guinea pig remains in England, which are a partial cavy skeleton found at Hill Hall (Essex), an Elizabethan manor house, and dated to around 1575.[23]
NAME
The scientific name of the common species is Cavia porcellus, with porcellus being Latin for "little pig". Cavia is New Latin; it is derived from cabiai, the animal's name in the language of the Galibi tribes once native to French Guiana.[24] Cabiai may be an adaptation of thePortuguese çavia (now savia), which is itself derived from the Tupi word saujá, meaning rat.[25] Guinea pigs are called quwi or jaca inQuechua and cuy or cuyo (pl. cuyes, cuyos) in the Spanish of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.[26] Ironically, breeders tend to use the more formal "cavy" to describe the animal, while in scientific and laboratory contexts it is far more commonly referred to by the more colloquial "guinea pig".[27]
How the animals came to be called "pigs" is not clear. They are built somewhat like pigs, with large heads relative to their bodies, stout necks, and rounded rumps with no tail of any consequence; some of the sounds they emit are very similar to those made by pigs, and they also spend a large amount of time eating.[28] They can survive for long periods in small quarters, like a 'pig pen', and were thus easily transported on ships to Europe.[29]
The animal's name carries porcine connotations in many European languages. The German word for them is Meerschweinchen, literally "sea piglet", which has been translated into Polish as świnka morska, into Hungarian as tengerimalac and into Russian as морская свинка. This derives from the Middle High German name "merswin". This originally meant "dolphin" and was used because of the animals' grunting sounds (which were felt to be similar).[30] There are however many other, possibly less scientifically based explanations of the German name. For example, sailing ships stopping to reprovision in the New World would pick up stores of guinea pigs, which provided an easily transportable source of fresh meat. The French term is Cochon d'Inde (Indian pig) or cobaye; the Dutch call itGuinees biggetje (Guinean piglet) or cavia (while in some Dutch dialects it is called Spaanse rat); and in Portuguese the guinea pig is variously referred to as cobaia, from the Tupi word via its Latinization, or as porquinho da Índia (little Indian pig). This is not universal; for example, the common word in Spanish is conejillo de Indias (little rabbit of the Indies).[26] The Chinese refer to them as Holland pigs (荷蘭豬, hélánzhū). The Japanese word for guinea pig is "モルモット"(morumotto), which derives from the name of another mountain-dwelling rodent, the marmot; this is what guinea pigs were called by the Dutch traders who first brought them to Nagasaki in 1843.
The origin of "guinea" in "guinea pig" is harder to explain. One proposed explanation is that the animals were brought to Europe by way of Guinea, leading people to think they had originated there.[27] "Guinea" was also frequently used in English to refer generally to any far-off, unknown country, and so the name may simply be a colorful reference to the animal's exotic appeal.[31][32] Another hypothesis suggests the "guinea" in the name is a corruption of "Guiana", an area in South America, though the animals are not native to that region.[31][33] A common misconception is that they were so named because they were sold for the price of a guinea coin; this hypothesis is untenable, because the guinea was first struck in England in 1663, and William Harvey used the term "Ginny-pig" as early as 1653.[34] Others believe "guinea" may be an alteration of the word coney (rabbit); guinea pigs were referred to as "pig coneys" in Edward Topsell's 1607 treatise on quadrupeds.[27]
TRAITS AND ENCIRONMENT
Guinea pigs are large for rodents, weighing between 700 and 1200 g (1.5–2.5 pounds), and measuring between 20 and 25 cm (8–10 inches) in length.[35] They typically live an average of four to five years, but may live as long as eight years.[36] According to the 2006 Guinness Book of Records the longest living guinea pig survived 14 years, 10.5 months.[37]
In the 1990s, a minority scientific opinion emerged proposing that caviomorphs, such as guinea pigs,chinchillas, and degus, are not rodents and should be reclassified as a separate order of mammals (similar to lagomorphs).[38][39] Subsequent research using wider sampling has restored consensus among mammalian biologists that the current classification of rodents as monophyletic is justified.[40][41]
NATURAL HABITS
Cavia porcellus is not found naturally in the wild; it is likely descendant from some closely related species of cavies, such as Cavia aperea, Cavia fulgida, and Cavia tschudii, which are still commonly found in various regions of South America.[1] Some species of cavy identified in the 20th century, such as Cavia anolaimae and Cavia guianae, may be domestic guinea pigs that have become feral by reintroduction into the wild.[12] Wild cavies are found on grassy plains and occupy an ecological nichesimilar to that of the cow. They are social, living in the wild in small groups which consist of several females (sows), a male (boar), and the young (which in a break with the preceding porcinenomenclature are called pups). They move together in groups (herds) eating grass or other vegetation, and do not store food.[42] While they do not burrow or build nests, they frequently seek shelter in the burrows of other animals, as well as in crevices and tunnels formed by vegetation.[42] They arecrepuscular, tending to be most active during dawn and dusk, when it is harder for predators to spot them.[43]
source : wikipedia , picture
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