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History

Cavia porcellus is not found naturally in the wild; it is likely descended from closely related species of cavies, such as C. aperea, C. fulgida, and C. tschudii. These closely related species are still commonly found in various regions of South America. Studies from 2007 to 2010 applying molecular markers, and morphometric studies on the skull and skeletal morphology of current and mummified animals revealed the ancestor to be most likely C. tschudii. Some species of cavy, identified in the 20th century as C. anolaimae and C. guianae, may be domestic guinea pigs that have become feral by reintroduction into the wild.

Regionally known as cuy (Spanish word derived from quechua quwi), the guinea pig was first domesticated as early as 5000 BC for food by tribes in the Andean region of South America (the present-day southern part of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia), some thousands years after the domestication of the South American camelids. The Moche people of ancient Peru worshipped animals and often depicted the guinea pig in their art.

Early accounts from Spanish settlers state that Guinea pigs were the preferred sacrificial animal of the Inca people native to Peru. These claims are supported by archaeological digs and transcribed Quechua mythology, providing evidence that sacrificial rituals involving Guinea pigs served many purposes in society such as appeasing the gods, accompanying the dead, or reading the future.

From about 1200 to the Spanish conquest in 1532, the indigenous people used selective breeding to develop many varieties of domestic guinea pigs, forming the basis for some modern domestic breeds. They continue to be a food source in the region; many households in the Andean highlands raise the animal.

In the early 1500s, Spanish, Dutch, and English traders took guinea pigs to Europe, where they quickly became popular as exotic pets among the upper classes and royalty, including Queen Elizabeth I. 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, the animal was believed to have been earlier introduced there by Spanish travelers. However, based on more recent excavations on West Indian islands, the animal must have been introduced to the Caribbean around 500 BC by ceramic-making horticulturalists from South America. It was present in the Ostionoid period on Puerto Rico, for example, long before the advent of the Spaniards.

The guinea pig was first described in the West in 1554 by the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner. 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).

The earliest-known European 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 a 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. 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, an Elizabethan manor house in Essex, and dated to around 1575.