Domestic Basilisk

These albino creatures are bred to navigate easily without their dangerous gaze being as potent. Their gaze can still cause petrification but it takes longer. Beating a basilisk with an undiluted gaze by showing it a mirror is common knowledge. This diluted gaze gives the considerably less basilisk-aggressive breed time to figure out the basilisk it is looking at isn't real and to look away, making them harder to disarm security creatures. Some people do choose to raise them simply as pets however, and the application of anti-magic goggles can render them perfectly safe if they are fully tamed and raised well.

Cry of a wild basilisk.

Basic Information

Anatomy

All domestic basilisk are between lemon yellow and solid white, depending on if they are bred down from mostly black or green lines. Their eyes are a deep ruby with ghostly pupils. The typical spines on the back of a basilisk are completely translucent and they are capable of stridulation by raising them and rattling them against each other. Unlike wild basilisks their heat pits are not underdeveloped and line the lips prominently, able to be opened or closed like flaring nostrils. They have 4 sets of legs just like their wild kin and are significantly larger to make sure they can still carry out the offensive needs of a guard animal.

Genetics and Reproduction

All lines of domestic basilisk are tyrosinase-negative albino. Wild basilisks of a variety of color morphs do come in tyrosinase-positive albino (often called Caramel Albinos) but this should not be confused for tyrosinase-negative, which is the only strain to have an actual change on the petrifying gaze. Outbreeding crosses have proven that some domestics are also leucistic, but the effect can't be seen beneath the albinism. The domestic basilisk is also prone to cataracts and bug-eye, two traits that were initially bred for on purpose but that responsible breeders now seek to eliminate from the gene pool.
The domestic basilisk has the same impersonal reproduction of a wild type. The male and female are together for about two days at most, usually far less, where the couple courts by carefully preening the other's spines. Breeding is a sedentary affair and then they part. The female will lay between two to five eggs in to a laying box filled with loose, slightly damp soil 3 months later and leaves them, where they can be taken by the breeder, placed in an incubator, and will hatch roughly 130 days later. If a gravid female is not provided a lay box she can become egg bound, a lethal condition if not corrected surgically in an immediate fashion.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Meaty diets that include whole prey other than fur are sold in formulas and sizes determined by age and are readily available in populous areas. Breeders and owners in rural locations typically must prepare their own meat and bone diet.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Because of their poor eyesight the senses of the domestic basilisk are greatly increased in other fashions. Specifically, their heat pits are highly over developed and they hear very well. Their smell is good enough to check if a creature is familiar or not. While reptilian in appearance it actually sniffs using its nostrils and deploys the organ used by snakes and lizards to taste smells to instead read social hormonal ques.

Conservation Status

The domestic basilisk's albinism makes it a prevalent curiosity in captivity but prevents it from establishing itself as an invasive species, as their downgraded eyesight means they have poor survivablilty.