The history of guinea pigs as pets: from the Andes to Elizabethan England

Where did guinea pigs come from?

Guinea pigs come from the Andes mountains of South America. Four Paws says people in what are now Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia began domesticating them around 5000 BC, and the British Cavy Council gives the same date, with a careful "possibly". The pet you have at home is a fully domestic animal. Its wild relatives, the cavies, still live in South America, but the round, chatty guinea pig on your sofa was shaped by thousands of years of living alongside people.

In the Andes they began as farm animals kept close to the household, the British Cavy Council notes. But they were never only that, and they turn up again and again in the art of the region.

How did people in ancient Peru feel about guinea pigs?

Fondly enough to make art of them. Four Paws and Burgess both describe guinea pigs in Andean folk art and handicrafts from about 500 BC to 500 AD, and say the Moche people of northern Peru, who flourished between roughly 100 and 800 AD, made statues of them and put them in their artwork.

Something else happened in the centuries before Europeans arrived. Between about 1200 and 1500, Peruvian breeders, especially under the Incas, bred guinea pigs in more and more varied coats and colours, many of them close to the varieties we see today, according to Four Paws. So the patchwork tortoiseshells and smart whites you see at a show are an old Andean achievement, not a modern European one.

When did guinea pigs come to Europe?

In the 1500s. After the Spanish reached South America, guinea pigs crossed the Atlantic on trading ships. The British Cavy Council links their arrival to the Spanish conquest and dates it to "some time in the 16th Century". Four Paws credits the Spanish first; Burgess names Spanish, Dutch and English traders. Both may be right, since all three nations were trading across the Atlantic at the time.

The first written records are slightly muddled. Four Paws says the earliest known written report of guinea pigs comes from Santo Domingo, in today's Dominican Republic, in 1547. Burgess says the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner gave the first written description in the West in 1554. The two do not really clash: one is a report from the Caribbean, the other a European book.

Once in Europe, guinea pigs were treated mostly as pets. Four Paws says they were imported mainly as pets, and prized by the wealthy and by royal courts.

Were guinea pigs kept as pets in Tudor England?

Yes, and archaeologists have found one. During digs at Hill Hall, an Elizabethan house on the Theydon Mount estate in Essex, excavators recovered the remains of a guinea pig from a layer dated 1574 to 1575, Wessex Archaeology reports. It looked more like a modern short-haired pet than a wild cavy.

Hill Hall belonged to Sir Thomas Smith, a scholar and courtier who served as ambassador to France and rebuilt the house from 1557. Wessex Archaeology suggests that, with his place at court, he may have got the animal as a curiosity. Imagine a guinea pig squeaking for its supper in a grand Tudor house: that is the oldest guinea pig yet known in England.

For a while, this made it look as if guinea pigs were a luxury for the rich alone. Then, in 2007, a complete guinea pig skeleton turned up in the cellar of a middle-class home in Mons, Belgium. National Geographic reported that it dated from the late 1500s or early 1600s, and that the research team concluded it "had been part of the family". The lead researcher, Fabienne Pigière, said this showed the animal was available to several classes of people, "not only the aristocrat".

What is the Elizabethan portrait with a guinea pig?

It is a painting called Three Unknown Elizabethan Children, oil on a wooden panel, made around 1580 by an unidentified artist trained in the Netherlandish style. The National Portrait Gallery in London found it while preparing its exhibition Elizabeth I and Her People, which ran from 10 October 2013 to 5 January 2014, and called it "possibly the earliest-known depiction of this animal in a portrait". The painting itself is privately owned.

Inscriptions give the children's ages as six, seven and five. In the middle, the little girl cradles a guinea pig in her arm. The Gallery described its coat as beige, brown and white, and Burgess calls it a tortoiseshell. Beside her, her younger brother holds a small bird, probably a finch, another favourite pet of Tudor children. The Gallery says their fine clothes mark them out as children of a wealthy family of the nobility or gentry. Wessex Archaeology calls the guinea pig "the oldest guinea pig in English art".

What makes the picture so touching is how ordinary it looks. About 450 years ago, a child chose to be painted holding her guinea pig, exactly as a child might pose for a photo today.

Did Queen Elizabeth I keep a guinea pig?

Perhaps. Wessex Archaeology says she "is reputed to have kept a guinea pig", and Four Paws and Burgess both call her one of the first European fans. We have not found a document from her lifetime that proves it, so we treat it as a cheerful tradition rather than a recorded fact. What is certain is that guinea pigs were in England, and in English homes, during her reign.

Why are they called guinea pigs?

Nobody knows for certain, and that is the honest answer. Here are the main ideas, with the evidence for and against each.

Four Paws repeats the coin story, saying they cost a guinea each in 16th-century England. The Royal Mint's own history shows the coin did not exist until a century later, so we would set that one aside. The "pig" part is easier. Their squeals sound a little like a piglet's, and their round bodies and short legs help. The German name, Meerschweinchen, means "little sea pig", and the Latin porcellus means "little pig", Four Paws notes.

When did guinea pig shows and breeds begin?

Guinea pigs went from Tudor curiosity to a proper hobby in the Victorian age. Burgess dates the founding of the National Cavy Club to 1888, to support breeding, showing and welfare. In 1977 the National Cavy Club's members voted to set up the British Cavy Council, which first met that autumn at the London Championship Show. Today the Council sets the breed standards used to judge guinea pigs across the UK, and Burgess says it recognises more than 50 breeds.

Many of the coats you meet today got their official standards only recently. The British Cavy Council lists the Rex (1984), the Teddy (2011) and the Californian (2024) among the breeds it has standardised. Our guide to guinea pig breeds, types and colours walks through them all, from the rosette-covered Abyssinian to the long-haired Peruvian.

What does all this history mean for your guinea pig today?

A few things. First, guinea pigs have lived in human homes for thousands of years, which is why they are so relaxed around people once they settle. Their whistles and squeaks for food are part of that old partnership; our page on guinea pig behaviour and body language explains what each sound means.

Second, they come from cool, high mountain country. Warm rooms can be hard on them, so check our guinea pig temperature guide before summer. Third, they are sociable animals that do best with company: see do guinea pigs need a friend?

And they are still loved by children and adults alike. Burgess estimates there are around 700,000 pet guinea pigs in the UK. If you are thinking of joining them, start with our full guinea pig care guide, then dip into our guinea pig facts. For another famous household, read about Theodore Roosevelt's White House guinea pigs.