5 ms·
The taming of the dog, cow, horse, pig and rabbit
- SideburnsOfDoom 8y agoCats not mentioned. Because they're not fully tamed?
- saurik 8y agoThere has been a lot of stuff in recent years arguing that cats domesticated themselves, whereas we domesticated these other animals.
- crooked-v 8y agoDomestic cats are also still nearly identical to African wildcats physically and in social behavior, with the primary differences being lower aggression levels and greater general sociability. Compare to dogs, where even the most "wild" dog has morphological differences in skull shape and distinct differences in social interactions from wolves [1]. [1]: https://particle.scitech.org.au/earth/eye-contact-between-dingoes-and-humans-reveal-clues-of-domestication-process/ https://particle.scitech.org.au/earth/eye-contact-between-di...
- tlow 8y agoFrom the articles linked research: " Recent work comparing dogs and wolves suggests that eye contact is an important behaviour underlying these social bonds; however, it remains unclear how this feature of interspecific social bonding evolved"
- overcast 8y agoEye contact is a big part of it. There was a documentary about dogs recently, where they did a simple experiment by placing a piece of food inside a cage that could not be opened by anyone but a human. First they let the wolf go at it, and it just went crazy trying to find a way in, inevitably giving up to do something else. The dog on the other hand tried for a bit, and then turn around and looked directly at the human for assistance.
- p1necone 8y agoI was under the impression that dogs kind of did that too, at least initially. Basically wolves and foxes and so on following humans around eating scraps and slowly becoming more accustomed to us. Of course we found them useful enough that we then further trained and domesticated them too.
- crooked-v 8y agoMy theory is that African wildcats were already so well suited for the role they ended up in (hunting vermin without being annoying or dangerous to humans) that there was very little selection pressure on them for anything but general sociability and smaller territories. Most other domestic animals took much more drastic changes from their wild ancestors to become more than marginally useful.
- dpeck 8y agoRelated specifically to the pig and our relationship to them, the book Lesser Beasts (https://smile.amazon.com/Lesser-Beasts-Snout-Tail-History/dp/0465052746 https://smile.amazon.com/Lesser-Beasts-Snout-Tail-History/dp...) is a great read.
- simplesleeper 8y agoI've been wondering for ages why we don't continue activally domesticating other species - what better way to protect them than to ensure we can integrate? It may take a while, bit we've managed it in the past with a fragment of our scientific knowledge
- kasey_junk 8y agoWe do continue to domesticate animals. The Russian red fox is an obvious example.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoThat's the only one example I can think of. Are there any others?
- clouddrover 8y agoBudgerigars have been selectively breed for size and appearance for about 150 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budgerigar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budgerigar
- nn3 8y agoThere are lots of tamed wild animals around. For example tamed tasmanian devil's. Or tamed birds like parrots. But they haven't been especially bred for tameness, just they are naturally tameable.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoI mentioned Tassie Devils in another comment. I'd hazard a guess most the Australian marsupials would make fairly okay pets fairly immediately. Kangaroos, wallabies, pademelons, tasmanian devils (I live here wooo!), quolls, all seem to get by okay in captivity, so that's half the battle won.
- Joakal 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domesticated_animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domesticated_animals