Not unless one of the early stages of domestication is doing something about that nasty venom, which can be painful for months after the sting.
Cool Potential Domestications
- Thread starter DG Valdron
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Not unless one of the early stages of domestication is doing something about that nasty venom, which can be painful for months after the sting.
Only males have venomous spikes and it’s not unplausiable for a mutation that causes them to lose the spikes. Also Playtpus milk is shown to have anti microbial properties so tribes that domesticate them will have an advantage during outbreaks of disease
Driftless
Donor
Why not? Other species have ongoing symbiotic relationships (i.e. supposedly a variety of baboons and other primates raise wild dog pups)
The issue is we've not had the population densities where domestication becomes worthwhile until rather recently. Settlement also helps a great deal in separating the domestic animals from their wild relatives.
On the other hand, humans may have had tamed pets and working animals for some considerable time (though "working" might be a poor term - tame wild animals might be better described as "helpful companions" in such circumstances - working domestic animals will do things no tame wild animal would).
As to how long that considerable time is... Hard to say. Neanderthals may not have been able to domesticate animals. On the other hand, Homo Erectus 1.8 million years ago may have been able to do so. Or, as you say, perhaps even before then.
fasquardon
Considering ants are able to domesticate aphids and that the line between commensalism and domestication is extremely blurry, I don't think there's any upper limit on when human ancestors could have engaged in domestication-like activities. That said, the fact that there are no domesticated animals in our repertoire whose genes indicate an age older then 13,000 BP would indicate to me that it didn't happen. If it did, I would think it would be dysgenic to lose.
Am I understanding correctly domestication depends on being sedentary? I would have thought horses & dogs, frex, could be domesticated by nomadic/pastoral people. Llamas & such, too, as pack animals. Cats, as hunters of agricultural pests (rats & mice), no need. Cattle seem to want sedentary, unless we presume they're very inclined to migrate; a pastoral society might adopt & follow them (or follow & domesticate), so maybe NAm bison.
Somehow, I picture an ancient society with domesticated giant sloths guarded by bear-dogs, protecting them from Hyaenadons or Smilodons, with domestic cheetahs for hunting.
(Maybe I've seen too many episodes of "The Flintstones". )And even today, there are opportunistic animals, from Indian monkeys (baboons?) to NAm coyotes & raccoons. Which comes back to the question, do we need a sedentary society to get domesticates, or can a pastoral society manage it? IMO, depending on the "target" animal (& its native behavior), pastoral could do it. Then it's a matter of what other species might take advantage.
I'm thinking, didn't doesn't mean can't. The issue is, did it not happen because it couldn't be done, or because there was no need to do it? Until we become sedentary, lack of strain on resources means the need to domesticate is pretty low: that is, population doesn't rise enough, nor does consumption.
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As I understand it there are two problems:
1) a nomadic people have a much harder time domesticating animals since their animals can easily mix with wild stock. There are many stages between a wild animal and a fully domesticated animal, and it seems that an early and necessary step for all animals we consider domestic today, was being kept in captivity by sedentary peoples.
2) for a nomadic group, it seems generally more useful to semi-domesticate animals. Like reindeer today or like red deer may once have been (it is theorized that red deer are so chilled around humans because they were semi-domesticated during the mesolithic - but since humans got everything from the deer as an animal that was allowed to range freely and be hunted, the domestication never advanced further). There are other animals that may also have been semi-domesticates of nomadic peoples, but of course, it's very hard to prove - we've found giant sloth pens in the Americas, but don't have much evidence for exactly what the human/giant sloth relationship was and of course red deer may just have always been a particularly chilled animal - most deer species are apparently relatively good with humans I've read, so one can argue it both ways - either they've all been semi-domesticated to some extent or they're all just naturally more relaxed with humans than most wild animals are. Certainly one can point to steppe horses as a true domesticate that is closer to its wild ancestors among nomadic peoples. Most of our datapoints are weaker than horses though.
This is an area where more research is needed though, so this has yet to be proven.
fasquardon
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Driftless
Donor
My younger daughter has two ferrets. I'd consider them semi-domesticated...., but that's probably the result of insufficient training
Some members of that Mustelidae family seem to have the social traits that would allow them to be either fully domesticated or to function in "good neighbor" symbiosis. In this case, good neighbor = both groups occupy overlapping geography amicably while often being unintentionally useful to each other. The Mustelids eat rodents and big bugs, and the humans keep the larger predators away.
It's horses that make me wonder about the underlying assumptions both ways. How much of the "need" for sedentary is bias, & how much is failure? I agree, there needs to be more research.
For the sake of this thread, IMO, author (poster?) fiat rules.
That suggests societies could use them instead of cats. (That is cool, on one hand, but OTOH, as a cat lover, it makes me really sad. IMO, the ancient Egyptians had it right.
)That suggests societies could use them instead of cats. (That is cool, on one hand, but OTOH, as a cat lover, it makes me really sad. IMO, the ancient Egyptians had it right.
Would be best where they don't have cats, like the Americas (since local felids seem to be too big and/or too shy of humans to bother with hanging out around their settlements compared to Old World wildcats). It seems like that in the Old World, the benefits of wildcat domestication was great enough to ignore competing animals. It certainly isn't hard to attract feral cats even today. Some theories suggest the word "cat" is from an Afroasiatic language, like those languages perhaps spoken by people where cats were domesticated (but this is controversial, since the Egyptian word for cat is derived from the sound cats make i.e. "meow"). And the Chinese had the leopard cat domesticated at one point, but they abandoned it in favour of the African wildcat and nowadays the leopard cat's only importance is as part of the stock used to create hybrid cats.
As a fellow cat lover, I'd love if the East Asians kept the leopard cat domesticated. Maybe find a way to get the fishing cat domesticated too (housecats seem to like to drop their toys in places like your doorstep, their food/water bowls, etc, so fishing cats can grab fish for people?), and the Mississippians domesticate the bobcat (could be good as a fur animal in addition to removing agricultural pests) while in Mesoamerica, the ocelot is domesticated and in South America, the margay is domesticated. Perhaps the Russian fox experiment might be directed toward lynx TTL, and you'd no doubt end up with lynx which resemble domestic cats in coat and temperment.
Overall, a "peak felid" TL would be pretty great, since in addition to all sorts of felids which would be easy to adopt (and all the weird cat hybrids which would exist), conservation of felids might be further than OTL.
Driftless
Donor
That suggests societies could use them instead of cats. (That is cool, on one hand, but OTOH, as a cat lover, it makes me really sad. IMO, the ancient Egyptians had it right.
Long ago in the previous millennium, we rented half a farmhouse on a working dairy farm. Ninety-five percent of the cats on the farm were feral (most were abandoned on the highway). The farmer treated them in the "good neighbor" fashion I noted above. They weren't his pets - but he'd see to it that none starved or were overtly sick or injured. They'd come an go as they pleased and he was happy for their efforts in keeping the mice away from the granary. When my wife inquired, our landlord sighed and shrugged "New ones come every other week to replace the ones that leave. At any given time there are more cats on the farm than milkers...." The other five percent of the cats on the farm adopted us, and we ultimately brought three of them with us when we moved into town. I'd guess that's a story that has occurred ever since the first wildcat and human agreed to share common space.
As metalinvader665 notes, most of the North American smaller cats might be either too large(Lynx) or too solitary(Bobcat), which is where some of the more social mustelidae might have filled a similar "good neighbor" role. That might have worked with any Native American groups that had settled into a more stationary agrarian life involving stored grains and the like AND with a local social Mustelid population. Ferrets, otters, martens(?) might fit the profile. Of course, they can be aggressive enough to have a go at any domestic fowl, so there's a potential conflict. Any full domestication might not occur until some generations later.
In ref ferrets v cats, I'm thinking housecat rather than anything bigger (which I should've been clearer about...)
I'm not troubled by the exact mechanism of how domestication of ferrets (& such) might be done. I'm happy to g from "can be done" to "has been done" in one step--& if it's cool enough, handwave "can be" & say, "Live with it."
Cats replacing dogs as the domesticate of choice? Then interbreeding for desirable traits? (I have some doubts a "herding cat" would arrive, or could be kept from eating the sheep, but I could be persuaded. )
On domesticating fishing cats, I wonder if the Chinese might do it, following from their integrated system of silkworms, pelicans (?), & fish.
It crosses my mind a society that domesticates big cats instead of dogs might be more tolerant of major predators in the wild generally, & so less inclined to (frex) try & exterminate wolves. Am I wrong?
)I'm not troubled by the exact mechanism of how domestication of ferrets (& such) might be done. I'm happy to g from "can be done" to "has been done" in one step--& if it's cool enough, handwave "can be" & say, "Live with it."
This is a TL I very, very much want to see.
Cats replacing dogs as the domesticate of choice? Then interbreeding for desirable traits? (I have some doubts a "herding cat" would arrive, or could be kept from eating the sheep, but I could be persuaded. )On domesticating fishing cats, I wonder if the Chinese might do it, following from their integrated system of silkworms, pelicans (?), & fish.
It crosses my mind a society that domesticates big cats instead of dogs might be more tolerant of major predators in the wild generally, & so less inclined to (frex) try & exterminate wolves. Am I wrong?
These are midsized cats no bigger than a medium-sized dog. Wolves are still a threat and bigger than anything you have.
I wonder if somehow domesticated dogs could be kept from spreading to the Americas. At least long enough for dogs which later arrive from Siberia to encounter societies who have no need for them.