4 ms·
There are only a few species that are generically predisposed to domestication. We have domesticated pretty much all of them - and the rest failed, despite mult
by papito 5y ago
There are only a few species that are generically predisposed to domestication. We have domesticated pretty much all of them - and the rest failed, despite multiple attempts across thousands of years.
Zebras, for example, not "eligible". It looks like a nice horsy but the things are totally wild, and happen to be the number one source of zoo injuries because people are fooled by the harmless striped pony.
- qnsi 5y agoare foxes eligible for domestication? because they havent been domesticated in premodern times, but have been succesfully domesticated in laboratory
- dredmorbius 5y agoThrough highly intentional selective breeding. Mind that the domestication of dogs also presumably resulted from artificial selection, though with a far weaker understanding of principles involved.
- xen2xen1 5y agoI believe a Russian man did domesticate them. IIRC it only took 30 generations to be very very doglike. I'm sure it Googles.
- kodah 5y agoI somewhat doubt this is the way to look at it. Dogs took between 11,000 and 40,000 years to domesticate. That all started with dogs using up more of a carcass than humans would after a hunt and the humans just didn't care. Eventually, humans found that dogs can and would do more. If my read is right it, any species could be tamed as long as they're evolutionarily ready to. Not all members of that species may be ready to either, as the writing points out a wolf did attempt to grab a baby gelada, was drove out, and was not allowed to return. Interestingly, they did not apply this logic broadly.
- ABraidotti 5y agoBy "evolutionarily ready," do you mean artificially selected for docility or other amenable characteristics? I think certain species are intractable and unable to be domesticated, while others seem to be much more pliable. It took only six generations [1] to domesticate silver foxes. 1. https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12052-018-0090-x https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118...
- kodah 5y agoAgreed, mostly. I do think it's possible that a species can gain traits through evolution that make them more compatible with domestication. Dogs, when we domesticated them, were not the dogs we know today. They were wolves with specific evolutionary advancements that made them less hostile to humans. Of course, we can speed that up too a bit arbitrarily through selective breeding. That was all "evolutionarily ready" meant to me.
- wildlogic 5y agoRealy wild to me that horse and zebra are so different that one can be domesticated and the other cannot.
- dboreham 5y agoAlso Moose.
- quercusa 5y agoProbably needs Squirrel as a catalyst.
- MichaelZuo 5y agoIt's relative, with several tens of thousands of generations of selective breeding zebras can be domesticated. It's just not doable over a few dozen generations.