r/NoStupidQuestions • u/-chibcha- • 1d ago
What animals have humans made a significant, but failed, attempt at domesticating?
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u/tnsipla 1d ago
Cheetahs.
You’ve had plenty of rulers keep multiple cheetahs and attempt to domesticate them, but problematically, Cheetahs rarely ever breed in captivity, and when they do it’s not controllable- on the other hand, Cheetahs tame very easily
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u/HistoryBuff678 1d ago
Yep, cheetahs needs a lot of space to court each other as they race each other when courting. So while they are easy to tame, they require tons of space the average human does not have.
Add to that, they are incredibly flighty and anxious. Cheetahs in zoos are given dog companions to calm them down as they grow up.
So space and extreme anxiety makes breeding extremely difficult.
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u/Turbogoblin999 1d ago
extreme anxiety makes breeding extremely difficult.
Same here.
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u/newtonrox 1d ago
Have you tried a black lab sidekick?
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u/Turbogoblin999 1d ago
Hmmm... I have been thinking of starting a PI agency with a quirky gimmick. I wonder how many people I can convince the dog is psychic.
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u/Existing-Scar554 1d ago
Went to the Dallas zoo years ago, and watched their young cheetah and his black lab side kick.
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u/catonafilly 1d ago
I live in the same city as a very famous zoo that has bred them before. They apparently partner with a cheetah "farm" in the area as well, now that I'm looking it up.
However, last time I WENT to said zoo, they were having a cheetah show, and one of the zookeepers mentioned that at least one cheetah in particular was a little TOO tame and had gotten a little TOO comfortable with humans-- the whole time she was trying to talk and explain cheetah facts and the zoo's breeding program, the cheetah she was talking about was licking her hair and forehead and holding a paw on her arm.56
u/Current-Function-729 1d ago
Feels like that’s something that would intensely select for.
Finally get a few to breed and keep breeding those.
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u/tnsipla 1d ago
The other problem you run into is that Cheetahs suffered a couple of major population bottlenecks, so you don’t actually have anything to select for- any two Cheetahs will basically pass DNA tests as siblings, if they don’t pass for being the exact same Cheetah
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u/TiredPistachio 1d ago
Yeah dogs are crazy diverse in comparison. Allows humans to breed them like crazy
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u/Dkykngfetpic 1d ago
Issue is breeding them in the first place. We just didn't know how to get them to breed. The mughal emperor had one litter in his entire program. So selective breeding is impossible.
Now we can we have the technology and knowledge.
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u/Astrazigniferi 1d ago
I deeply believe that wild animals deserve to be wild. That belief is very much at odds with how much I would love to have a pet cheetah because they seem like just the goodest bois when used to humans. I have actually wondered why we never domesticated them, but being too picky in their breeding habits makes a lot of sense. It fits with their whole “super sweet but anxious and delicate” vibe.
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u/Black_Cat_Just_That 1d ago
If I was wealthy enough to do whatever the fuck I wanted, I would 100% have a cheetah.
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u/oby100 1d ago
I was amazed to learn on that Netflix show that plenty of not so wealthy people had hordes of large cats.
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u/Fruitslave 1d ago
Every once in a while I think of that photo of the lion in the window in a NYC apartment. If a person really wants a big cat bad enough they will get one (or more than a few) no matter what.
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u/Frequent_Pause_7442 1d ago
There used to be a firearms shop near me whose owner had a mountain lion as a pet. He let it walk around loose in the shop 24/7. He said it was very tame, but I was never too sure about that.
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u/begoniann 1d ago
I bought my husband a private cheetah feeding experience at the zoo. I highly recommend something like that. It was awesome.
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u/Blackpaw8825 1d ago
I think that's just cats. Mine would happily ignore my wishes and take what is rightfully hers if she could only open the damn food herself.
100lb of that may tolerate a human friend, but only so long as convenient.
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u/Cascadakid 1d ago
That’s because cats remain very similar to their undomesticated ancestors! Their natural ability and desire to hunt pests is why they started hanging around people and why people enjoyed having them around. As a result their anatomy and behavior changed very little during the domestication process.
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u/Versipilies 1d ago
Just a slight step down from a cheetah, a serval is 10-40lbs, are domesticated, and can be just the terror you would imagine
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u/bg-j38 23h ago
I don’t think it’s safe to say servals are domesticated. At least no real authority recognizes that. People do keep them as pets but that isn’t what really means something is domesticated. Now what is considered domesticated are Savannah cats which are a hybrid of the common domesticated cat and servals. In the US federally they’re considered domesticated at first generation but some states only apply that designation a few generations in. You’d be hard pressed to find any legitimate organization that considers servals domesticated though.
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u/Fraternal_Mango 1d ago
There is actually a place in California that has Cheetahs. They raise them with a dog companion and they are bonded for life. I don’t know if this actually helps cheetahs breed better or anything. More of a fun factoid
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u/iTalk2Pineapples 1d ago
Fun factoid: the word factoid originally meant something false. We have repurposed the word to mean something factual
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u/HistoryBuff678 1d ago
It reduces their anxiety. That way, when they are old enough breeding is actually a possibility.
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u/SilverVixen23 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'll bring up an animal that hasn't been mentioned yet: skunk
They're only partially domesticated. You can get cute colors and they're fairly tame, but they tend to be extremely destructive, have specialized diets, and their personalities are mixed as to whether they'll get along with people or not
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u/gsfgf 1d ago
And while you can have their scent glands removed, their whole deal is that their spray smells like skunk so the predator in question can’t hunt by scent since it smells skunk everywhere. Of course, this means that even descented skunks smell like, well, skunks.
Also I think they’re prone to rabies.
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u/SilverVixen23 1d ago
It's not so much that they're prone to rabies, but they're a high risk vector species in the wild. This is likely due to the fact that if an infected animal attacks them, it typically results in the predator walking away covered in skunk juice and the skunk continuing on with a now rabies-infected wound. Similarly, that's why you rarely hear about small mammals like rats and rabbits contracting rabies. They don't usually survive the attack that would otherwise give them the virus.
"Domestic" skunks can technically be vaccinated, but it's very difficult to find a vet that knows how to do it since they don't get the same dosage as a dog or cat. Also because they can't be vaccinated, if a pet skunk bites a person for any reason, they technically have to be euthanized and tested. I've done a bit of research because I'd love to own a skunk, and that part about euthanizing because of a bite scared me away from it (also they can be hella destructive since they love to dig).
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u/hardhatgirl 1d ago
A classmate brought her pet skunk in for show and tell, 1st grade, early seventies. Never saw another pet skunk. If my memory serves, everyone in class class was in love with it.
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u/ElectricStarfuzz 1d ago
I had a kindergarten classmate bring in his pet skunk for show and tell.
We all loved it and it was very sweet.I get along very well with skunks usually.
They’ve never sprayed me and many have let me hand feed them fruit.I had a blind skunk friend who would eat cat food out of my hand and let me pet him/her.
It approached me while I was sleeping on my back deck next to our cat dish. It snuffled about and kind of bumped into things so I figured its eyesight was poor.
I don’t want to startle it so I spoke to it softly to let it know I was there.
Over time it started regularly coming up to where I was
when I was out back smoking.
I’d sing to it and it would come closer.
Eventually it got to the point where it let me hand feed it and pet it.
I never tried to catch it tho.
We were good friends for 4-5yrs before I moved.I’ve had baby skunks wake me up by licking my toes when I fell asleep in my lawn chair near my garden.
I dunno why they like me,
but we’ve always seemed to get along well and they tend to want to approach me more often/closely than other animals…tho I’ve also had deer, foxes, rabbits, and raccoons come up to me with curiosity.→ More replies (4)46
u/rositree 1d ago
Have you considered that you might be a Disney princess? Sounds idyllic
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u/KingZaneTheStrange 1d ago
The "American Hippopotamus Bill
In 1910 there was a nationwide meat shortage. So the state of Louisiana made an attempt to import hippos from Africa and raise them for meat, and to eat invasive weeds. Despite the support of Theodore Roosevelt, the bill was rejected by congress
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u/gishgudi 1d ago
Praise the lawd they didn't. It wouldve ended up like Pablo Escobar's Hippos in Colombia
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u/beaglemama 1d ago
I know you're right, but I like watching "Swamp People" on the History Channel and part of me wonders how much more difficult gator season would be if they had to also deal with hippos. 🦛🐊
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u/little_gnora 17h ago
There’s a great fiction book about what would have happened if the bill had passed called America Hippo. I can’t recommend it enough
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u/Hamsterpatty 1d ago
lol, aren’t hippos One of the most deadly creatures on the planet?
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u/KingZaneTheStrange 1d ago
That's probably why congress rejected it
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u/RevolutionaryJob3993 1d ago
Congress rejected the bill at the time due to the midterms, the house being up for grabs, and the hippo act being easily lampooned as a waste of money. WW1 came around and people stopped lost interest.
It would never get approval now, but I think it would be a fascinating ecologic experiment even in a small portion of the mississippi basin.
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u/Trick-Landscape-157 1d ago
They probably were referring to the Canadian House Hippo.
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u/RevolutionaryJob3993 1d ago
This was brought up in the bill! The hippos suggested were not the full sized hippos, but pygmy hippos such as Moo Deng which are much less dangerous.
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u/Emmaabroookks 1d ago
Fox domestication in Siberia. It was a real, decades long experiment starting in the 1950s that made foxes tame and floppy eared in about 20 generations, which is a stunning scientific result. It never became a thing because a tame fox still smells, still digs, still destroys furniture, and nobody needed one. It’s a failure as farming and a triumph as genetics.
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u/CatGooseChook 1d ago
Is that the one where the initial goal was to breed them to be more docile (easier to farm) for the fur trade but the docile ones all ended up with fur colour patterns that were not amenable to the fur trade?
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u/lafolieisgood 1d ago
I watched a documentary on this. Not only did they breed the most docile ones that turned very puppy like pretty quicky, they also bred the most aggressive together for multiple generations. Those turned into demons that would slam against and start gnawing on the cage if you walked by them.
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u/CatGooseChook 1d ago
Didn't recall the aggressive breeding part, cheers for the reminder. Also damn! Last thing anyone needs is hyper aggressive foxes.
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u/No-Donkey-4117 1d ago
Squirrels. They were popular pets in Colonial America, but it turns out they carry a lot of diseases that can transfer to people.
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u/PartyPants90000 1d ago
When I was in middle school my dad cut down a tree and our dog got the mama squirrel and 3 baby squirrels were left in the nest. We bottle raised them on kitten formula and then when they got older we let them go in our backyard.
They were still very tame after and would continue to come on the porch and let us handle them. The next year they had babies and brought them to us and let us feed them too.
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u/marmosetohmarmoset 1d ago edited 12h ago
My parents started a family holiday called Squirrel of the Night. Background lore is a similar tale to yours where my mom rescued a baby chipmunk and nursed it back to health. Now the Squirrel of the Night, spirit of all woodland creatures, bestows upon us a yearly gift of nuts and candy to show its gratitude.
It sounds like you are also worthy of a blessing from The Squirrel.
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u/SerenityPickles 1d ago
Watched 2 squirrels 🐿️ fighting in the back yard. Their violence made me nervous so I went inside. An hour or so later I watched the winner carrying the dead loser all over the yard. For several hours!!! They terrify me. 😳
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u/GreasedGoblin 1d ago
I saw a bunch of crows gang up and kill one of their fellow crows. Idk what he did. Now I think of crows differently like you do squirrels.
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry 1d ago
Also have boltcutters for teeth
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u/Oldbillybuttstuff 1d ago
Can confirm. Used to hand feed one on my deck many years ago. Till one day something startled it and it bit my finger. Instant bone crunch. Never again.
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u/Wishyouamerry 1d ago
Did you know that squirrels are not a rabies vector? I learned that fun fact from the Rabies Response Team at the ER after my daughter was attacked by a squirrel!
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u/Graysylum 17h ago
I had a pet squirrel as a kid. We lived in a rural forested area so there were lots of critters in the yard, and sometimes we got orphans or ones whose mama never came back to claim them.
Anyway, this squirrel was bottle-raised on kitten formula (which is not appropriate, don't do that, but this was before the internet and we didn't have a ton of options) and he was an AWESOME pet. Ran to greet you when you got home like a dog, except he could climb up your leg and sit on your shoulder like a parrot. He didn't like being picked up but did like being petted and would just climb all over you like they do trees. He tried to bury nuts everywhere, like the furniture and your hair.
I miss him and wish I could have another, but they want and deserve to be wild when at all possible, plus it's not legal in my state.
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u/Immediate-Cat8632 1d ago edited 14h ago
Not necessarily domestication, but behaviorists were doing all kinds of weird stuff with animals in the ‘30s and ‘40s. B.F. Skinner was working on a missile guiding system that was three pigeons in the head of a missile, pecking at targets to guide the missiles to enemy bases and weapons factories. Unsurprisingly, it never took off. I believe it was called Project Pelican Pigeon if you wanna read more about it.
Similarly, the U.S. military tried to weaponize bats by attaching incendiaries to them and getting them to roost in enemy spaces. They released their first wave of bats, which roosted in their own base and burned it down. Don’t remember the name of that one. It’s called Project X-Ray, thanks y’all.
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u/CR123CR123CR 1d ago
It was actually just called project pigeon xD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon
Edit: this quote is a really dark window into Skinner's general methodology
"In the case where two possible targets were on the screen, Skinner noted that at least two of the birds would be in agreement, and the third would be "punished for his minority opinion" to encourage it to steer towards the target preferred by the majority of the pigeons"
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u/lestairwellwit 1d ago
Skinner was an a**hole
I remember, on hearing about his death, someone said, "Let's see him get out of that box."
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u/GeneSpecialist3284 1d ago
Also dolphins.
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u/maroongrad 1d ago
dolphins and crows are smart enough we need to quit thinking about taming and training them and work more on the befriending them and cooperating with them aspect. My kid wants a pet crow. She learned how incredibly smart they are and now just wants a crow friend. I gave her blanket permission to use our chicken eggs, dog food, and whatever else she wants to share with the crows if she gets a chance.
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u/saintsithney 1d ago
Make sure she has a repeated signal that lets the crows know she has put down food and is going inside. My crow friends respond to two long whistles: one low and one high.
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u/philmarcracken 1d ago
one of the best comments I ever read was on a post about how difficult it was to domesticate raccoons, how we've tried before and failed. The basics of which is they have hands, and understand the concept of revenge, so in every instance in the home, they fuck shit up and get kicked out into the wild
one commenter stated 'theres no way thats true, my cat definitely understands revenge, why else does it shit in my shoes'
reply: love of the game
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u/Jaefvel 1d ago
I remember a Swedish king wanted to domesticate moose for military purposes. It didn't succeed, but if it had I'm sure the world would look very different (and Å,Ä and Ö would be considered respectable letters on any keyboard).
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u/DuckyVermin 1d ago
Without knowing the context of what happened but knowing how moose like to behave, I would imagine someone got trampled by either a mom defending baby or a male in rut. Moose are pretty dumb and when the hormones go up, that stupidity gets turned into unchecked aggression. And uh… we aren’t prepared to make the check. My dad survived a moose attack because it couldn’t understand it was kicking a tree and not him. Yes. He did the “hide behind a tree” trick and the moose beat the tree into submission until it got bored.
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u/heavenly-superperson 1d ago
Supposedly they don't do well in large herds or like being around gun and cannon fire.
The Swedish King's moose cavalry is probably a myth, but apparently some later attempts have been made
At least as persistent are the myths regarding the King’s moose cavalry. It is said that Charles XI kept moose at Kungsör—one of his preferred retreats when he could escape Stockholm—and that, by royal command, great efforts were made to train them as mounts for use in battle. Unfortunately, there is not a shred of evidence to support the existence of such a moose cavalry. The only accounts that mention it are tall tales dating from the 19th century—a period when serious attempts to domesticate moose were actually made. These ideas were prompted by poorly founded rumors that horses were afraid of moose; thus, a moose cavalry encountering a horse cavalry would supposedly have a strong chance of victory. However, none of the attempts made in the 19th century met with any significant success.
https://historiskamedia.se/artiklar/grakappan-legenderna-om-karl-xi/
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u/Sapphires13 1d ago
It’s all fun and games until the møøse bites your sister.
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u/MooKids 1d ago
We apologize for the fault in this /r/AskReddit post, the person responsible has been sacked.
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u/Timely_Egg_6827 1d ago
Foxes but they changed from red to black and white and got floppy ears and curly tails so not so good for fur trade
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u/Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeess- 1d ago
could have had pet foxes but they’re worried about the fur trade
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u/MortLightstone 1d ago
Pretty much
Idiots I say
Though if you want "Fox at home", you can always get a dog and a cat and pretend they're the same animal
Foxes are dogs with cat software
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u/An-Empty-Road 1d ago
No. They make terrible pets because their urine smells Terrible and they pee on everything
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u/Brian_Corey__ 1d ago
Yeah, I would’ve loved a pet fox. Then I smelled one. Good lord. Unbelievably strong smell from 20 feet away.
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u/ZoroeArc 1d ago edited 1d ago
Wait until you smell the poop. The number one rule for scat identification is “if you have to ask, it’s not a fox.” The fact that it’s bright orange and has the viscosity of whipped cream is also fantastic.
And no, they cannot be house trained
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u/Time-Cover-8159 1d ago
I call fox poo 'eau du parfum for dogs'. My dog loves to get it on her pulse points on her neck. She also hates having a bath. Unfortunately she hasn't linked the two events together.
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u/Timely_Egg_6827 1d ago
Dead seagull is worse. Our JRT X rolled on that at the seaside and it had to be windows down for the hour drive home.
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u/Do_you_smell_that_ 1d ago
You reminded me of the time my mini schnauzer found a hunter's pile of rotten elk innards out in the woods and got a minute unsupervised with it. It took 2 showers and 2 baths
Edit to add rotten
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u/cypeo 1d ago
They didn't change color, they selected melanistic foxes for the Balyaev experiment. Also, not all of the foxes were sourced from the wild, a good few of them came from fur farms, which already exploit color mutations.
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u/ToastyScrew 1d ago
Cheetah
Akbar the Great, the Mughal Emperor was obsessed with cheetahs and had over 1,000 in captivity under high quality care. But no matter what they would not breed. Cheetahs unlike other large cats are relatively docile to humans, fatal attacks are extremely rare and they are excellent hunting companions at the time. But to domestic an animal, it needs to be breed to push for traits like friendliness and lack of fear toward humans. Akbar spent an enormous amount of money over is near 50 year reign trying tk breed them with zero success.
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u/TNTiger_ 1d ago
They didn't bleed because the female needs to be chased for miles over an open plain to ovulate!
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u/ToastyScrew 1d ago
Seriously?
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u/TNTiger_ 1d ago
Seriously! So the male has to 'prove' his genes are strong enough to be worthy to mate. It makes them SUPER hard to breed in captivity.
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u/cwningen95 1d ago
I do love when extremely wealthy and powerful historical figures have these kooky obsessions
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u/SuddenPlate5609 1d ago
They have in other areas... but I should mention that they tried to use camels in Utah for silver mining in the 1800s for packing supplies and whatnot. Americans found camels to be way too stubborn, emotional and just a pain in the ass to deal with. They did pack supplies well (of course) but miners were just tired of trying to deal with them.
They released them assuming they would do well in the desert but since there aren't camels in the Mojave it would be safe to assume they did not make it work.
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u/Bee_Jeans 1d ago
For domesticated animals they really do have such attitude! Chaos horse.
Australia sounds like the opposite of The Utah Incident, camels were brought & used for transport in the 1800s, but once cars/trains took over they were released in the outback.
Turns out, camels do really well in the Aussie desert. So well that it’s kind of an issue & incited culls, but there’s still 100s of thousands left
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u/no_talent_ass_clown 1d ago
Wait. There are wild camels in Australia? That's nifty to learn.
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u/Your_Therapist_Says 22h ago
*feral camels, not wild ones. As part of the management programs which includes culling and export, some states have also sold captured ones to be kept on farms. There was a farm pretty close to where I used to live, they kept them for milk and meat. The feta they made from camel milk was incredible. They're beautiful animals, they just don't belong in the fragile Australian ecosystems. Some of the other feral animals currently damaging Australian habitat include water buffalo, rabbits, goats, pigs, cane toads, and in my area, foxes and five different types of deer, both of which are an absolute pain in the ass when I'm trying to drive around without, you know, smooshing an animal smart enough to survive in suburbia but too dumb to get off the road.
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u/egosumumbravir 22h ago
Indeed there are. They've been quietly breeding out there for a century with genetics now so rare and desired Australia live-exports camels back to the middle east.
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u/Vivid-Fennel3234 1d ago
Kind of a fail in a different way, but pigeons. Technology took their jobs and we just sent them to live in the wild after fucking them up.
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u/FoxNegative2041 1d ago
They are still domesticated. The ones in the wild are just feral.
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u/Rodot 1d ago
Not all but yes, the ones people see in towns and cities all are.
Also, they are immune to bird flu and we don't know why!
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u/FoxNegative2041 1d ago
All you have to do to get a new pet in NYC is open your window and put some bred near it.
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u/Turbogoblin999 1d ago
I did that once while visiting my aunt and a homeless guy got in.
Now that I think about it maybe that was her husband.
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u/basaltcolumn 1d ago
They are still completely domesticated, just feral. Same as feral domestic cats, dogs, horses, etc. They are also still widely bred and kept. There are all sorts of interesting domestic pigeon breeds, it is very much a hobby that is alive and well today.
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u/The_Motarp 1d ago
Pigeons (doves) were kept in dovecotes as food animals for many centuries. Then for whatever reason we mostly stopped eating them and only kept a few for carrying messages. We have mostly stopped using them for that as well, but there are still people breeding them as a hobby and also a few organizations that keep carrier pigeons around just in case.
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u/CyanCitrine 1d ago
Zebras come to mind.
Meanwhile I read recently that raccoons seem to be trying to domesticate themselves.
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u/cutchemist42 1d ago
Listend to a great radio segment on this. I guess raccoons are where dogs were about 3000 years ago.
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u/Dont_Even_Know_You 19h ago
I can tell you that the raccoons who live near me are not afraid to climb in my open window and make themselves at home.
Only problem is their idea of home looks like a mini hurricane went through it. Seriously, I have to keep my kitchen window shut at night bc they figured out how to pop the screen out. And this has gone on for 4 years now. And it's like they wait and watch for me to leave it open. I could close it every night for weeks, and the one time I forget, they are here smh.
And they will absolutely let you pet them and everything. It's not like they'll see me and run. They'll see me coming, take a quick look at me, then continue with their destruction like I'm not standing there telling them it's time to go.
I love them, every year there's new babies 🥹 But I don't want them in my house and I know not to feed them. I've thought about trying to trap and relocate them, but there's always babies and I'm afraid I'll miss one. So I just try to leave them alone honestly.
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u/Comatose_Cockatoo 1d ago
Bison! They are wild animals but also ranched. Some have cattle DNA (to varying degrees) as well. Rancher select for calmed easier to handle ones but they definitely aren’t considered domesticated like cattle.
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u/In_The_News 1d ago
So, there's a dark side here.
There are no, zero, zilch, none, genetically pure North America Bison left. Because of the US government policy of genocide by Bison slaughter, herds of millions were slaughtered and left to rot. It was policy to kick the legs out from under Native People who depended on bison for food, shelter, tools, fire, religious significance. It was intentionally indirect because outright genocide by direct killing was a bad look. But it was absolutely planned.
Once the native people were displaced through starvation or relocation due to the unsurvivable conditions, white settlers could claim and move onto the now-vacated land.
Some people, in a desperate effort to save the species, kept a few individuals. They bred them with domestic cattle just to increase the genetic population and then began backbreeding for original bison characteristics.
Even the Yellowstone herd -long thought to be a pure line- is anywhere from 1-2.5 percent genetically domestic cattle.
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u/OilersGirl29 1d ago
I don’t actually know if this is entirely true. There are genetically “pure” bison at Elk Island National Park near Edmonton, Alberta. But there are two different types of bison, woodland and plains, and iirc, the herd that exists now came from one of the last surviving plains herds that were relocated from somewhere in southern USA in the early 1900s. I’m Indigenous and went to see the park last year; it was a truly powerful experience. I cried like a baby. I’ve seen bison before, but farmed bison. Never anything so inexplicably free — even if they are technically kept within the confines of the park.
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u/PerpetuallyLurking 1d ago
I did a short paper for a writing class a couple years ago on the conservation of the bison and if I remember correctly, there are woodland bison way up north that are “pure” and may have also contributed to some of the current plains herds genetics (I’m less sure on that second point).
But yeah, the story of the Elk Island bison is very interesting and they’ve done so well. I believe Grasslands National Park, a few other parks, and a couple tribes/reservations have also been given herds as the population at Elk Island increases.
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u/fluffysheap 1d ago
That was the best available science until recently, but the latest science on the subject indicates that the majority of bison are actually purely bison. This study that took a closer look at the expected DNA similarity between these two bovid species and found that it's more likely natural similarity rather than crossbreeding. Cattle and bison are about as closely related as humans and gorillas, so they share a lot of DNA just by nature.
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u/TRJF 1d ago
What Jaws was to sharks, Snakes on a Plane was to Emotional Support Cobras
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u/Fickle-Lavishness858 1d ago
IM TIRED OF THE MF SNAKE ON THIS MF PLANE!
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u/ImNotAWhaleBiologist 1d ago
This one has a little sleeve that says 'support animal'.
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u/Fickle-Lavishness858 1d ago
I feel like it should be a little hoodie for a cobra
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u/jbadding 1d ago
Twenty years ago you could put your friend’s phone number into a website and they get a call from Sam Jackson freaking out about “Snakes on a Plane”.
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u/GeniusLike4207 1d ago
Cobras are dicks but probably among the smartest snakes. Though snakes generally aren't the brightest animals
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u/RainaElf 1d ago
have we really domesticated the cat?
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u/Vinegar1267 13h ago
In a vacuum it might not seem to be the case but when you compare their behavior to wild felines it does become evident that they’re definitely domesticated. Their close relatives such as African wildcats (the direct ancestor) and European wildcats are completely intractable animals and highly solitary, while despite their aloofness domestic cats are actually fairly gregarious animals.
Even in the hybrid breeds you see some real difference, bengal cats for example (domestic cat mixed with the wild leopard cat of Asia) are way more bold and energetic than typical tabbies, similar goes for savannah cats (mixed with serval). Our house pets may still possess many of their wild features but we’re not hanging out with a bunch of completely wild felines, that’d look much different
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u/StillClwnWitDUndrgnd 1d ago
Zebra
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u/Fickle-Lavishness858 1d ago
they are assholes through and through. You can bottle raise them but they all hit a the age where the asshole gene kicks in and there is nothing you can do about.
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u/Legitimate_Staff487 1d ago
Monkeys
Holy shit do people want to have pet monkeys. Basically any time a society gets advanced enough someone starts putting leashes on monkeys, and the monkeys just pee and throw shit the entire time.
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u/I_Am_Zeelian 1d ago
Cats, they domesticated us instead :p
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u/GaidinBDJ 1d ago
I mean...kinda?
With dogs, we deliberately and consciously domesticated them.
Cats just sort of came along for the ride. They didn't kill us, we had no particular reason to kill them, and as we built towns and cities and such we created environments where they were pretty safe and there was lot of prey for them.
Biologically speaking, there's some debate about whether cats are truly domesticated or merely very tame.
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u/OSCgal 1d ago
We recognized that cats are great at hunting the little animals that eat our stored food, so we left them alone. Very much a symbiotic relationship!
Personally I think that's why cats were worshipped. Imagine being a neolithic farmer who's tried year after year to keep rats and mice out of your granaries, the only thing that stands between you and starvation over the winter. And then this shy little creature just shows up and does the job for you. Must be a gift from the gods, right?
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u/Fluffy_Profession781 1d ago
Reading this after my girl has bullied her way onto my chest to lie atop the titties she’s been bruising to her liking for the past week, purring very contently yet swerving my kisses 😂
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u/ZealousGoat 1d ago
I'd be more curious to know what animals we haven't attempted to domesticate that we maybe could or should
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u/adamantcondition 1d ago
Some crows have been trained to collect trash and valuables so their might be untapped utility there
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u/racrenlew 1d ago
2-year-old humans. I mean jfc, no hope of domestication.
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u/CountessSockula 1d ago
Very true. They're also the fastest land animal. All you have to do is ask "What did you just put in your mouth?" and POOF they're a dwindling dot on the horizon.
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u/TNTiger_ 1d ago
Elephants. We're really good at taming them, but ttey live too long and have too few kids to domesticate- it would take centuries of effort.
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u/GregTheWhale 1d ago
I mean we're making a significant attempt to domesticate foxes, but I have no idea how successful it is
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u/smarmiebastard 1d ago
The Siberian fox experiment wasn’t done because they wanted to make tame foxes as pets, it was done to see what happens to the morphology of animals if you select only for behavior, and not physical traits. It was successful in that they found selecting purely for behavior after about 10 generations also produced physical changes in foxes that are similar to dogs: shorter muzzles, floppy ears, spotted fur patterns, and curly tails.
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u/SWEET_LIBERTY_MY_LEG 1d ago
Vicuna. Llama and alpaca have been domesticated but not vicuna, despite them having "the finest and softest wool in the world"
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u/Lawlzstomp 1d ago
New animal for me!
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u/SWEET_LIBERTY_MY_LEG 1d ago
Check out how much a vicuña scarf costs compared to a cashmere or alpaca scarf 😂
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u/adv_biker 1d ago
Racoons, they are adorable looking, but they still aren't house hold worthy. The ones that do stick it out in a home get so fat their little legs can't reach the ground anymore
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u/Daily_Dose_42069 12h ago
ZEBRAS.
Europeans thought Africans were stupid because they never domesticated their horse, the Zebra.
Guess what? Zebras are fucking assholes and will not and cannot be tamed.
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u/Eureecka 1d ago
Cheetahs. We’ve been trying since before king tut and while individual animals tame down fine (and wow, do I want to test that theory!), it takes generations of captive breeding and cheetahs are just too terrible at reproduction for it to work. (Just saw a really interesting reel on this a couple days ago.)
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u/Starfoxmarioidiot 1d ago
There’s been a significant scientific effort to study selective breeding using foxes, but I think the experiment ended before they got where they wanted. I guess people must have tried with zebras, too because one thing I hear about them a lot is that they can’t be domesticated. Then you have all the animals that people keep as pets that tolerate people, but aren’t all the way over the line to domestication. Ferrets, chinchillas, tortoises, etc. I don’t know if that counts as an effort to domesticate so much as just finding individuals that are more or less ok with being around people.
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u/WanderWomble 1d ago
I have a friend who has zebras and camels, as well as several bulls.
I'd rather handle the bulls, and I've had horses since I was about three years old.
The zebras are properly nasty. They kick, they bite. You have to be 100% on at all times when you're near them.
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u/Itchy-Technician-433 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah I remember reading something about how when you rope a horse, it will try to flee and you can subdue it.
When you rope a zebra the damn thing tries to fucking kill you. It will come at you biting and kicking.
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u/5Hjsdnujhdfu8nubi 1d ago
Yeah, that is the core of the issue. Horses are easily spooked and flee anything they think is a threat.
Zebras will attack anything that they think they could fend off, and humans are not nearly as intimidating as a lion pride.
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u/knea1 1d ago
I remember reading about the foxes, IIRC the more domesticated the foxes became their fur evolved unattractive patterning so they were useless for fur farming.
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u/EmZee2022 1d ago
Yeah - MANY pets we keep aren't so much domesticated, as tamed. They can learn to like being around people, but it's not their default unlike a dog. We've owned 4 budgies (parakeets) and an Indian Ringneck parakeet and they've all assumed we were going to eat them, and will never approach us.
Ditto the guinea pigs.
Interestingly, these pets have evolved physical traits never seen in their wild ancestors. Colors. Fur types, Etc. But I still consider them tamed, vs domesticated.
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u/Smokin_belladonna 1d ago
"significant"...?
People have tried to have chimps as pets. It's usually fine until they grow older and get all rapey and bitey.
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u/Jejetlen 1d ago
Those damn zebras.
They really did try to domesticate them because of their superficial similarities to horses, but they turned out to be difficult to tame due to their intense stress responses and resistance to human intervention