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I think maybe you could if you bred from the most human-friendly zebras yo could find for a century or so. But nobody has really tried that, people are so impat
by gweinberg 8y ago
I think maybe you could if you bred from the most human-friendly zebras yo could find for a century or so. But nobody has really tried that, people are so impatient these days.
- improbable22 8y agoHow many centuries did it take us to donesticate horses? Probably quite a few... The only argument offered for the Why in the title is this one: > Moreover, zebras have evolved alongside man, whereas European animals mostly evolved in the absence of man (we didn’t migrate out of Africa until relatively recently). Yet clearly we weren’t such a shock to the horse’s ancestors that we simply ate them all... as we did everything in the Americas. Maybe because of earlier proto-humans? So is this some kind of goldilocks argument?
- cmrdporcupine 8y agoEvidence is that horses were domesticated (on the Eurasian Steppe) for meat and milk before they were ever ridden. So you're probably right that the behaviours that made them docile enough to ride emerged over quite a long time.
- defen 8y agoAll domestic horses today are descended from a tiny number of stallions (possibly even just 1). So maybe we just haven't gotten lucky yet in finding a super-tame male zebra from which to breed domesticates. https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1326 https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1326 http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/4/eaap9691.full http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/4/eaap9691.full
- ChuckMcM 8y agoAbsolutely, and the fox experiments[1] suggest 40 generations is sufficient. You just have to breed them for it on a consistent basis. [1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/mans-new-best-friend-a-forgotten-russian-experiment-in-fox-domestication/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/mans-new-bes...
- madflame991 8y agoThe catch is that friendly foxes don't look that foxy anymore; friendly zebras might lose their stripes at which point they kinda look like donkeys
- ChuckMcM 8y agoThat is entirely possible of course. But if that was the case, you could get a hell of a paper out of it by proving the genes responsible for coloration were tied to domestication.
- gwern 8y agoI'm afraid Darwin already published on how domestication syndrome involves pleiotropy in coloration changes, especially to piebaldness (which did indeed also happen to some degree in the domesticated foxes despite being selected solely based on behavior), so he has priority there by 2 centuries or so.
- x1798DE 8y agoThey look a lot like wild foxes to me: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_red_fox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_red_fox
- cobbzilla 8y agoYou're probably right, given enough time zebras could probably be domesticated. But perhaps there are some animals that just cannot be domesticated at all? As there seems to be some social/mental bond required, you'd be hard-pressed to find a scientist who'd claim domestication of insects was possible, the species-gap between us and them is just too big. So where is the line to be drawn?
- tlarkworthy 8y agoWe say wheat is domesticated. I just think it means weaved into the fabric of society. Brains are not necessary, but mutual benefits is.