4 ms·

What is it about this animal that makes it very dear to our hearts?

by nnoitra 5y ago

papacho 5y ago
The lack of self awareness makes animals innocents and it's hard to justify hurting an innocent being.
- NoRagrets 5y ago
  It’s neotenisation of animals features..especially domesticated animals. Cats are an exception..dogs have eyebrows..cats don’t!..they didn’t have to evolve to look like our young. We are often protective towards faces that look like our young. It’s hard coded for most creatures. Big eyes, flat side profile and reduction in size of the skulls. Tugging human heart strings means they don’t have to compete for food resources. Domesticated animals also exhibit this with behaviour as well as physical features. Cats..for example.. can be rather aloof ..until they need you. They are absolutely affectionate fur balls. We don’t play hide and seek..and fetch with adults but we do with children and our pets. They become child substitutes and satisfies a very primal caregiving instinct in humans who may not be able to express it with other humans. Also..this is why psychopaths start early with torturing and killing animals. It’s an early warning sign to lock these people up and throw the keys away.
GeoAtreides 5y ago
big eyes & small face: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuteness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuteness https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-code-for-cuteness https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-code-for-cuteness
- jelliclesfarm 5y ago
  Well… squirrels are just rodents with beautiful fluffy tails. We feed squirrels but we kill rodents. Maybe it’s the tail!
  - Ancapistani 5y ago
    As I sit here reading HN and watching two gray squirrels play in my front yard - I think this is very much a "cultural norm" thing, and not inherent. When I was in high school I did a science fair project that involved mice. Honestly it was mostly because my school tried to discourage us from using live subjects and I felt the need to push the boundaries. One of the hoops I had to jump through was to present the proposal to the IRB at a local community college. One of the IRB's requirements was to define the disposition of the mice after the project was complete. I decided to keep them as pets. Those mice lived an additional three years if memory serves, and they were every bit as suitable as pets as hamsters, reptiles, or similar small animals. The squirrels in my yard are basically outdoor pets - we regularly have a suet cake hung in their trees, and I made a permanent feeder for them that's kept full year-round. Our squirrels are... rotund. The ones I'm watching now are very young, and are the third generation that have lived on our property since we moved in. In the fall, I hunt squirrels with my daughters. They're small enough that they're consumed in one or two meals so nothing goes to waste, and they're intelligent enough that they're very difficult to hunt effectively. We don't shoot the ones in our yard, though. Those are pets.
    - jelliclesfarm 5y ago
      Why do you hunt squirrels with your daughters? Is it a survival thing or do you hunt squirrels for fun?
macintux 5y ago
Parasites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii
- devmor 5y ago
  Note that if you actually read the wikipedia article you linked, more recent studies found that the effects of previous studies are not supported by evidence, and found this with an extremely high P-value. You're also more likely to get the parasite from handling raw pork than cats, and indoor cats are entirely unaffected.
- blacklion 5y ago
  This parasite makes mice (not humans!) a slightly less averse to light and feline scent, noting more. I don't think we can attribute love for cats to toxoplasma, it is too far-fetched.
  - jelliclesfarm 5y ago
    I agree. But it’s more than being slightly averse..it makes the mice suicidal. The first time I heard about suicidal rodents and how cats hunt them with their Trojan parasitic poo was on the discover channel..they had set to a night vision camera and recorded the whole thing. I don’t even know if the channel or magazine exists anymore.. I have also seen this in snakes that ‘mesmerize’ mice ..predators know how to paralyze their prey. But this turned up as more recent and is closer to the Trojan suicide prodding parasite.. https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/science/article/mind-bending-parasite-permanently-quells-cat-fear-in-mice https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/s... I have read the full piece but now it’s not accessible without subscription.. [..] A mouse sniffs the air, catches the whiff of cat urine, and runs towards the source of the smell… and straight into the jaws of a cat. This bizarre suicidal streak is the work of a single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, which has commandeered the mouse’s brain and turned it into a Trojan rodent—a vehicle for sneaking T.gondii into a cat.[..] [..] T.gondii (or Toxo for short) infects a wide variety of mammals, but it only completes its life cycle in the guts of a cat. To get there, Toxo has ways of subverting the behaviour of dead-end hosts like mice. Its machinations are subtle, so subtle that it’s normally hard to tell an infected mouse from an uninfected one. But the difference becomes obvious when there’s cat pee in the air. Normal mice, even lab-born ones that have never met a cat, have an innate fear of cat smells. Those infected with Toxo do not. They (and their parasites) are more likely to end up in a cat. Toxo also influences the brain of Wendy Ingram from the University of California at Berkeley. She has long been obsessed with the brain and fascinated by Toxo’s dominion over it. “I was struck by the idea that a single celled parasite ‘knows’ more about our brains than we do,” she says. [..]

What is it about this animal that makes it very dear to our hearts?

papacho 5y ago

The lack of self awareness makes animals innocents and it's hard to justify hurting an innocent being.

NoRagrets 5y ago
It’s neotenisation of animals features..especially domesticated animals. Cats are an exception..dogs have eyebrows..cats don’t!..they didn’t have to evolve to look like our young. We are often protective towards faces that look like our young. It’s hard coded for most creatures. Big eyes, flat side profile and reduction in size of the skulls. Tugging human heart strings means they don’t have to compete for food resources. Domesticated animals also exhibit this with behaviour as well as physical features. Cats..for example.. can be rather aloof ..until they need you. They are absolutely affectionate fur balls. We don’t play hide and seek..and fetch with adults but we do with children and our pets. They become child substitutes and satisfies a very primal caregiving instinct in humans who may not be able to express it with other humans. Also..this is why psychopaths start early with torturing and killing animals. It’s an early warning sign to lock these people up and throw the keys away.

GeoAtreides 5y ago

big eyes & small face: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuteness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuteness https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-code-for-cuteness https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-code-for-cuteness

jelliclesfarm 5y ago
Well… squirrels are just rodents with beautiful fluffy tails. We feed squirrels but we kill rodents. Maybe it’s the tail!
- Ancapistani 5y ago
  As I sit here reading HN and watching two gray squirrels play in my front yard - I think this is very much a "cultural norm" thing, and not inherent. When I was in high school I did a science fair project that involved mice. Honestly it was mostly because my school tried to discourage us from using live subjects and I felt the need to push the boundaries. One of the hoops I had to jump through was to present the proposal to the IRB at a local community college. One of the IRB's requirements was to define the disposition of the mice after the project was complete. I decided to keep them as pets. Those mice lived an additional three years if memory serves, and they were every bit as suitable as pets as hamsters, reptiles, or similar small animals. The squirrels in my yard are basically outdoor pets - we regularly have a suet cake hung in their trees, and I made a permanent feeder for them that's kept full year-round. Our squirrels are... rotund. The ones I'm watching now are very young, and are the third generation that have lived on our property since we moved in. In the fall, I hunt squirrels with my daughters. They're small enough that they're consumed in one or two meals so nothing goes to waste, and they're intelligent enough that they're very difficult to hunt effectively. We don't shoot the ones in our yard, though. Those are pets.
  - jelliclesfarm 5y ago
    Why do you hunt squirrels with your daughters? Is it a survival thing or do you hunt squirrels for fun?

macintux 5y ago

Parasites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii

devmor 5y ago
Note that if you actually read the wikipedia article you linked, more recent studies found that the effects of previous studies are not supported by evidence, and found this with an extremely high P-value. You're also more likely to get the parasite from handling raw pork than cats, and indoor cats are entirely unaffected.
blacklion 5y ago
This parasite makes mice (not humans!) a slightly less averse to light and feline scent, noting more. I don't think we can attribute love for cats to toxoplasma, it is too far-fetched.
- jelliclesfarm 5y ago
  I agree. But it’s more than being slightly averse..it makes the mice suicidal. The first time I heard about suicidal rodents and how cats hunt them with their Trojan parasitic poo was on the discover channel..they had set to a night vision camera and recorded the whole thing. I don’t even know if the channel or magazine exists anymore.. I have also seen this in snakes that ‘mesmerize’ mice ..predators know how to paralyze their prey. But this turned up as more recent and is closer to the Trojan suicide prodding parasite.. https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/science/article/mind-bending-parasite-permanently-quells-cat-fear-in-mice https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/s... I have read the full piece but now it’s not accessible without subscription.. [..] A mouse sniffs the air, catches the whiff of cat urine, and runs towards the source of the smell… and straight into the jaws of a cat. This bizarre suicidal streak is the work of a single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, which has commandeered the mouse’s brain and turned it into a Trojan rodent—a vehicle for sneaking T.gondii into a cat.[..] [..] T.gondii (or Toxo for short) infects a wide variety of mammals, but it only completes its life cycle in the guts of a cat. To get there, Toxo has ways of subverting the behaviour of dead-end hosts like mice. Its machinations are subtle, so subtle that it’s normally hard to tell an infected mouse from an uninfected one. But the difference becomes obvious when there’s cat pee in the air. Normal mice, even lab-born ones that have never met a cat, have an innate fear of cat smells. Those infected with Toxo do not. They (and their parasites) are more likely to end up in a cat. Toxo also influences the brain of Wendy Ingram from the University of California at Berkeley. She has long been obsessed with the brain and fascinated by Toxo’s dominion over it. “I was struck by the idea that a single celled parasite ‘knows’ more about our brains than we do,” she says. [..]