Cool Potential Domestications
- Thread starter DG Valdron
- Start date
The Sandman
Banned
Fish. Ones that feed primarily on algae and water-plants would be the best, since they would be the easiest to feed, but insectivorous ones could also probably be maintained.
Owls or other predatory birds might work as verminators.
Paper wasps could be used to produce what their name implies, as well as control of invertebrate pests.
Sea otters could be used to dive for shellfish, sea urchins and possibly other underwater items.
Dolphins (including orcas) almost certainly can't be domesticated, but there could be a more consistent and deliberate effort made to cooperate with them to hunt for fish or larger whales, rather than the scattered local examples of OTL.
Macrauchenia might be a decent candidate for a mid-to-large size domesticate in the Americas. Same with toxodonts.
Possibly a good choice, as a verminator and for fertilizer production.
Owls or other predatory birds might work as verminators.
Paper wasps could be used to produce what their name implies, as well as control of invertebrate pests.
Sea otters could be used to dive for shellfish, sea urchins and possibly other underwater items.
Dolphins (including orcas) almost certainly can't be domesticated, but there could be a more consistent and deliberate effort made to cooperate with them to hunt for fish or larger whales, rather than the scattered local examples of OTL.
Macrauchenia might be a decent candidate for a mid-to-large size domesticate in the Americas. Same with toxodonts.
Possibly a good choice, as a verminator and for fertilizer production.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK03hUVouvU
A pet? Or a harvester? Or perhaps domesticate smaller ones for insect control, and to produce guano?
Seems difficult.
I am ninja'd. Jolly good show.
Anyway, while we're on the subject of pest control, I have a phobia of ants and have always wanted to domesticate an anteater or aardvark to keep them away.
They're even kind of cute in a way, especially the shaggy anteaters until OH MY GOD
Flocculencio
Donor
you might want to look at south India instead of just SE Asia- elephants are most heavily used in the state of Kerala though I can't find any info if the elephants there are smaller. They're used for logging but also as temple elephants so the trend of selection might actually be towards bigger and more impressive beasts but also temperament-wise, animals which are calm enough to handle massive crowds.
Here are a couple of pics to give you an idea of what the Kerala temple elephants deal with.
I suspect the mahouts would, over the generations have selected for animals which look grand but won't freak out when dealing with a million chering worshippers.
A bunch of kangaroos and platypuses kicking ass would be interesting also. Kangaroos are actually really dangerous kick boxers and have razor sharp claws that most people don't realize they have
And a surprisingly large amount of people don't know that platypuses are venomous.
Okay, good. But what for? What do bats contribute that makes them valuable enough to domesticate?
Milk?
Wool?
Meat?
Some specialized task?
yeah, i could see that working. chances are, though, it would be more like encouraged settlement than actual domestication: put bats in the attic near a source of light that bugs will fly around, and they might just decide to stick around and roost there during the day
And shit on everything. That's the real kicker.
Although that giant bat in the video I posted would make a badass pet if they could be tamed!
What do you think of the domesticated anteaters/aardvarks? Excellent pets/ant-termite controllers, or vicious mauling waiting to happen?
Well, he was saying specifically fertilizer, I was thinking more "arms production".
True. I was just thinking 'guano' overall.
I don't know if it can be produced fast enough. I mean look at an island like Nauru (which is bird guano, but hear me out). At one point it was a bird shit covered rock, like many other oceanic islands. The centuries of shit building up made it highly commercially viable, but now a lot of those places are, uh, wiped clean.
I don't know if bats can produce enough to be commercially viable.