[HN Gopher] Our dogs' diversity can be traced back to the Stone Age
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Our dogs' diversity can be traced back to the Stone Age
Author : 1659447091
Score : 33 points
Date : 2025-11-14 01:57 UTC (3 days ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| jimnotgym wrote:
| What does this say about me... I read that as someone has a
| nuerodiverse dog
| dmix wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.
| Arwill wrote:
| I read somewhere, that it might not have been a process,
| but a unique event. Dogs are not just gradually tamed
| wolves, but domestication might have been started with a
| genetic defect that made them tame.
| DaveZale wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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"
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| 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
| nomel wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| creatonez wrote:
| 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.
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