Our dogs' diversity can be traced back to the Stone Age

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce9d7j89ykro

by 1659447091 • 8 months ago

55 24 8 months ago

bbc.com

jimnotgym• 8 months ago

What does this say about me... I read that as someone has a nuerodiverse dog

actionfromafar• 8 months ago

Huskies

dmix• 8 months ago

Tamer wolves would get more food, and the humans gradually came to rely on the wolves to clean up remains of messy carcasses and to raise the alarm if a predator came near.

I read a book on the history of dogs https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/40180044-once-a-wolf

The only thing I remember is he said dogs may have stuck around humans because, like wolves today do with others predators, they could follow them around and scavenge off their successful hunts. But it was also possible the wolves/dogs just really liked snacking in between meals. Wolves are very capable at finding their own food but they enjoyed some meat & bones thrown to them in between their daily rounds. That's what crossed the line between scavenging on the outside and a closer relationship.

TrainedMonkey• 8 months ago

But it was also possible the wolves/dogs just really liked snacking in between meals.

My pet theory is that humans captured wolf pups, possibly by dealing with parents first, and kept them around as pets. People love playing with tiger, bear, and wolf pups and keeping them as pets today.

SoftTalker• 8 months ago

They may have but that's a way to get a (maybe) tame wolf, not a domesticated dog.

It would take generations of breeding the tamest ones, with the behaviors you wanted, to get something like the beginnings of domesticated dogs.

DaveZale• 8 months ago

did you ever hear the story about the Russian researcher who bred foxes into domestic pets within only about a dozen and a half dozen rounds of keeping only the "cutest" pups?

". Within just 15 generations of selective breeding, the experiment had yielded foxes that could live with people."

Beijinger• 8 months ago

Not sure man. The closest relative to the dog is the likely extinct, Japanese Wolf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_wolf

Maybe they were very tame to begin with? Like the extinct Falkland wolf:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands_wolf

"There were no forests for the animal to hide in, and it had no fear of humans;[citation needed] it was possible to lure the animal with a chunk of meat held in one hand, and kill it with a knife held in the other"

b112• 8 months ago

Someone once tried to hire me, on one of the islands up the Northern coast of BC.

Took 3 hours to get to by ferry, and one of the enticements was that "we have these dwarf deer, and they have no fear of man. You just walk up to them and hit them on the head with a stick".

I presume there was nothing larger than a fox on that island, for a deer to have no fear.

JumpCrisscross3• 8 months ago

The most successful land-based hunters are variants of dogs and cats [1]. (House cats remain in the top ten.)

Humans broke the game by allying with or exterminating other apex predators. I don’t believe another double-apex alliance is seen anywhere else, in our biosphere or in the fossil record.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_success

nomel2• 8 months ago

No, we broke the game by domestication, where we simplified hunting to walking the animal into the slaughterhouse. Mammalian wildlife is < 5% of mammalian biomass on earth, with humans being around 30% and domesticated animals being around 60% [1].

For example, there are around 30 billion chickens in the world, butchered within 6-8 weeks. Repeat.

Domestication was partly the result of not eliminating apex predators. A shepherd would guard a flock of sheep, and farmers would historically live/sleep near/with the animals, to protect them day and night.

[1] https://wildlife.org/on-a-global-scale-livestock-outweighs-w...

fellowniusmonk• 8 months ago

I think this is quite obviously a Yes And situation.

We've broken the game so many damn times, humans are awesome and we need to keep being awesome.

Somebodies gotta prevent an asteroid from killing the earth over these next 100 years.

It ain't gonna be the dolphins.

Speaking of which, we really need to ask the dolphins if they'd like some thumbs.

card_zero• 8 months ago

By becoming fatter and more delicious, the wild jungle fowl have evolved to exploit the human desire for a reliable source of meat. Now they outnumber us by a factor of four! The chickens have won.

JumpCrisscross3• 8 months ago

No, we broke the game by domestication

We domesticated plants animals for their meat, products and labour. We also domesticated dogs. This isn’t an either or.

creatonez• 8 months ago

Should be noted that wild cats (felis silvestris, felis lybica, felis catus) are not "apex" predators based on hunting success or being obligate carnivores. It's a common misconception that cats were apex predators when they were domesticated. They are both predator and prey, firmly in the middle of the food chain, and as such have the instincts of both. "Apex predator" would mean taking down large animals like elk, which would obviously be ridiculous for a small cat unless the prey is literally immobile.

Wolves are, though.

Our dogs' diversity can be traced back to the Stone Age

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