Are “artificially modified” pets cute or pathetic?

I have loved animals since I was a child. I have raised more than 300 different kinds of animals. In my opinion, as long as you raise them, every life should be equal and should not be measured by price. Whether it is a mealworm or fruit fly for food, a precious cat or dog, or a turtle worth tens of thousands of dollars, I will treat them with the same attitude.

When I was a kid, I loved visiting pet markets, from Beijing’s Longtan Lake Bird Market, Yuting Bridge Bird Market, Panjiayuan Bird Market, Shilihe Huasheng Overpass and Hongyan Market, to Tianjin’s Zhonghuan Road Market and Guangzhou’s Huadiwan. But I often saw some “strange” animals in pet markets—strange not because they were rare, but because they had been artificially “modified.”

Next, let’s take a look at these “strange” animals.

Red-eared slider

The official name of the Brazilian Slider is the red-eared turtle Trachemys scripta elegans. They are one of the most common pet turtles on the market. Because of their strong adaptability and fast reproduction, artificially bred red-eared turtles are very cheap, and their strong adaptability also makes them a very strong invasive species .

Normal red-eared slider hatchling | Vmenkov / Wikimedia

One time I saw a strange red-eared slider at a pet stall in a vegetable market: the shell of a young red-eared slider should be emerald green, but this pot of small red-eared sliders had all kinds of patterns on their shells. I was very curious, and when I took a closer look, wow! There were Doraemon, Ultraman, and even Ninja Turtles!

What's the purpose of painting another turtle on this turtle's shell?

Search for "Colorful Brazilian Squirrel" and these things will appear

A closer look reveals that the colorful turtle shell is actually a sticker . This red-eared turtle sticker may seem fresh at first glance, but a closer look reveals that it is not only full of bad taste, but also full of rustic stickers, paired with the green Brazilian turtle, it gives an indescribable feeling. At least none of my friends think that the red-eared turtle looks better after this kind of manipulation...

But what has always bothered me is why the sticker can be pasted so neatly? If anyone knows, please let me know.

Of course, there is more than one magic modification of red-eared sliders. There is an even more magical operation: "adding gold powder" to the little red-eared slider! The specific method is to throw the wet turtle seedling into the gold powder and roll it around. It will be covered with gold powder and become a "golden turtle son-in-law" when it comes out.

Then they faded in water...

Whether it is stickers or gold powder, it is quite harmful to the turtle itself. The turtle shell looks like a piece of iron, but it is actually much more delicate than we think. In addition, the young turtles grow very fast, and the turtle shell bound by stickers is like a person wearing a rubber jacket that cannot be stretched. The degree of discomfort can be imagined. In addition, the harmful substances contained in glue and paint are even more harmful to young turtles.

When the turtle is dipped in gold powder, there is a high probability that the powder will be inhaled into the lungs or eaten by the turtle . As far as I know, the mortality rate of red-eared turtles that have undergone these two treatments is significantly higher than that of ordinary turtles.

Why is there such an operation? When I was a child, that is, in the 1990s, red-eared sliders were introduced into China not long ago. Scarcity makes things valuable. A newly hatched baby turtle can be sold for about 10 yuan - 10 yuan was a huge sum of money back then! Later, with the expansion of the breeding population, the price of baby red-eared sliders has now fallen to 2-3 yuan each, and they are still unsaleable. However, after the magic modification, the red-eared slider can be sold for more than ten yuan each, which provides motivation for businessmen to toss the little turtles.

Fish

Another common modification is to color the fish, and the most commonly colored fish is the parrot fish (Amphilophus labiatus × Vieja melanura). Initially, the fish were dyed in various colors, and later, someone figured out the technology to use lasers to color and write words on the fish, usually clichéd auspicious words such as "Congratulations on your prosperity."

At first, many bosses liked this kind of fish, but later fewer people bought it. Maybe it’s because it’s unlucky if the fish with the word “wealth” written on it dies!

Sometimes he also paints on fish, and his style is surprisingly consistent and bizarre.

Another way to modify the parrot fish is to give it a "heart". This operation is more cruel: cut off the tail of the fish when it is young. If the fish survives by chance, it can only swim with its dorsal fin and anal fins without a tail, and it looks like a peach heart swimming in the water.

I cannot appreciate this kind of distorted aesthetic.

Does this look good??? Does this look good???

Stained glass pull

The persecution of tropical fish is not only aimed at parrot fish, but other small fish are also unable to escape.

For example, there is a tropical fish called "Glass Lala" (Parambassis ranga) on the market. Most of these fish are artificially injected with pigments and are called "colorful glass". These dyed fish have bright colors, but they are difficult to keep alive and the colors will gradually fade. Original color glass Lala is rare on the market and it is not easy to come across. On the contrary, dyed fish that have been manipulated are more common.

Stained glass pull | Quatermass / Wikimedia

The first time I raised a glass laguna, I bought a dyed fish, but each time I bought a fish, it didn't live long. In my memory, the longest-lived one died about a month after I got home. Among my friends, the longest one they kept was half a year.

Of course, fish like double-sided fish are not easy to raise, and forcing them to be colored will definitely make things worse.

In addition to fish, the dyed objects also include white jade snails (an artificially bred variety of the African giant snail Achatina fulica), axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum), African clawed frogs Xenopus laevis, etc.

The dyed African clawed frog looks like a dyed cherry on top of a dessert

The dyed color will fade over time, and it seems to have an impact on the health of the animals.

Tiger Dog

In addition to aquatic animals, terrestrial animals are also painted. As early as the 1990s, dog vendors dyed puppies with stripes and called them "tiger dogs". Some even wrote the word "king" on the dog's head - it was so ugly.

A Labrador with tiger stripes. Seriously, it looks like you lost a card game and got painted | juggadery / Wikimedia

Some vendors selling chicks dyed various patterns on the chicks to pretend they were pheasants, but the colors started to fade after a few days. Later, some even dyed the silk starlings yellow and brown, and the white feathers of magpies into various colors. Such magical changes may increase in the future.

The squirrel chicken that can’t be kept alive

In the past few years, in crowded places, such as subway stations or around shopping districts, there are sometimes vendors carrying loads of "squirrel chickens". These so-called squirrel chickens are several times smaller than chickens, with more colorful fur, and look very cute. Generally, the stall owner will tell you: "This is easy to raise, just feed it with millet and it will survive." (Of course, if it is said that it is difficult to raise, no one will buy it). But most of the squirrel chickens bought back are estimated to not even survive a night .

"Squirrel Chicken" | BrokenSphere / Wikimedia

In fact, this squirrel chicken is the chick of the quail Coturnix japonica. The newly hatched quail has very high temperature requirements, and the suitable temperature should reach 36~39℃ . If the temperature is too low, it will die . I usually use an incubator for raising reptiles to keep them warm. Some friends have also successfully raised them by changing the hot water bag every few hours.

Of course, most people may not have complete equipment, and they cannot change the hot water bottle every once in a while...

Raising hamsters in pairs

Hamsters are a kind of pet suitable for people of all ages. They are good-looking, cute, cheap, and require little space to keep.

Pet hamsters are descendants of several wild hamsters of the subfamily Cricetinae. From left to right, pet hamsters are: Golden Bear, One-line Hamster, Three-line Hamster and Old Man Hamster | Second from left: ratfrett / flickr, others: AnimalPetFans; Map: hannah

I see many of my friends buy a pair of hamsters, with the intention of breeding them themselves and adding to the fun of raising them; some people are fooled by vendors who say that "raising a pair can keep them company and keep them from being lonely."

But these friends may not understand the habits of hamsters - hamsters do not like to live with other hamsters, they are completely solitary animals , and they will fight each other when they meet their own kind. Not only will they fight to the death, but even more bloody, sometimes hamsters will eat the bodies of their dead hamsters.

So if you rashly let hamsters live together, you may suddenly find that one of your hamsters is missing, and there are a bunch of miniature sheep scorpions in the cage...

Even if it is a sexually mature pair of opposite-sex hamsters, they should be put together gradually to give them time to adapt to each other, otherwise fighting is common. | pxfuel

A pet bottle? It's a coffin.

A few years ago, there was a very popular portable pet bottle: a plastic bottle filled with water, and a "baby fish" (Cynops orientalis), a red-eared turtle or a small goldfish, etc. The stall owner would tell you that it was easy to raise and you didn't need to feed it at all - in short, it would survive if you didn't care about it (there are such magical creatures in the world).

But in reality, after being bumpy, exposed to the sun and frightened, these animals will not live for more than a few days before they go to see Darwin.

As a person who loves animals, I will at least find out the scientific name, origin and living habits of the animal before raising it. If I can't even do this, I believe that even if I can "raise it", it's just alive.

Of course, now I prefer to observe animals in nature, which is their original home.

Author: Erzhu

Cover image source: pxfuel

This article comes from GuokrNature (ID: GuokrNature)