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Why do we domesticate some animals but not others? It's all about the four Fs.

Here's the real reason why you can't ride a zebra.

Photo credit: Canva

Horses were domesticated over 5,000 years ago. Zebras, never.

Humans have domesticated several kinds of animals over the millennia, from trusty horses and mules to livestock for milk and meat to our favorite furry companions. But why those specific animals and not others? What is it that led us to those particular choices? Why can we ride horses but not zebras? Why don't we purposefully breed "war bears" to fight for us?

That last question comes straight from the always-interesting and often-hilarious CGP Grey, whose YouTube videos explore all kinds of things we wonder about but don't necessarily take the time to research. In the video "Why Some Animals Can't Be Domesticated," Grey explains the four main elements that make an animal a good candidate for domestication, which excludes bears (and many others) from the list.

Grey alliterated the four elements to make them easier to remember: Friendly, Feedable, Fecund, and Family-Friendly. Let's dig into what those mean.


- YouTube www.youtube.com

Domestication requirement #1: Friendly

This one is fairly self-explanatory, but basically an animal has to not post an inherent, immediate threat. We have to be able to catch them if we're going to domesticate them, so that eliminates all of the "carnivores whose day job is murder" as Grey puts it, as well as the large, nervous prey animals that are too afraid of us to let us get anywhere near them.

wild animals, domesticated animals, gazelle Good luck trying to catch a gazelle.Photo credit: Canva

Domestication requirement #2: Feedable

Every animal is feedable, of course, but that doesn't mean it's easy or cheap to feed them, especially in large numbers. This category pretty much eliminates pure carnivores and some omnivores, leaving mostly herbivores (and some unpicky omnivores) that are easy and cheap to feed. And that aren't dangerous (see #1).


wild animals, domesticated animals, chickens, chicken feed Chickens will eat just about anything.Photo credit: Canva

Domestication requirement #3: Fecund

This requirement is all about breeding and babies. Some animals are extremely slow to breed, like pandas and elephants, making them undesirable candidates for domestication. Animals that have mate frequently and have relatively short gestation times and/or large litters are more suited to domesticated life. They also need to grow up quickly, which also takes elephants out of the pool.

However, as Grey points out, humans can still tame other animals like elephants. But taming is not the same as domesticating. The basic rule is: If it's on a farm, it's domesticated. If it's in a circus, it's tamed.

Domestication requirement #4: Family-friendly

This is where the horses and zebras question comes in. Horses were domesticated in Eurasia, but if humans started in Africa, why weren't zebras domesticated first? Grey explains that while horses tend to live in hierarchical herds, zebras are more independent with no family structure. Humans can capture the lead male horse and get the rest of the herd to fall in line. Zebra herds are more of a free-for-all and they're kind of jerks to even one another.

While it would seem that horses we see in the United States today are indigenous, the North American horse species went extinct around 10,000 years ago. They were reintroduced to America by 16th-century European colonialists who spread them throughout the country through Native American trade routes.

horses, zebras, domesticated animals, wild animals There's actually a big difference between horses and zebras besides just the stripes.Photo credit: Canva

Barnyard animals have inherent family structures that humans have figured out how to fit into. These animals learn to see the humans who own them as a lead cow, top chicken, or whatever.

Way back in the hunter-gatherer age, when humans were just figuring out animal domestication, animals had to have all four of these requirements. Today, we have the ability and technology to domesticate more animals if we want to, but we also have less of a need to. Some breeds of foxes have recently been domesticated, bred to be friendly with humans. How fun would it be to have a pet fox? Foxes are incredibly cute but wildly intelligent. So good luck keeping one in your backyard for very long.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Technically, a lot more animals could be domesticated if people really wanted to put in multiple human lifetimes of time and effort, but why?

You can follow CGP Grey on YouTube for more fun and informative videos.

This article originally appeared in April.

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People investigating noises under their house awaken a bear in their crawl space

“It’s a raccoon. Oh, IT’S A BEAR!”

@badthingswithfunnypeople|TikTok

Couple investigating noises accidentally awaken a bear.

It's not uncommon to hear something outside of your house, especially if it's close to trash pick-up day. Raccoons and stray cats treat an overflowing trashcan like a holiday dinner, and even if you weren't sure if you heard something or not, the torn trash bags confirm your suspicion.

This is a pretty universal experience in America, so hearing a rustle under your house typically conjures images of a trash panda that got stuck. But for one family, the noises weren't coming from a raccoon at all. In a viral video on TikTok that has over 10 million views, a couple is outside looking for the source of the noises they've been hearing. The woman is filming at a fairly safe distance, while the guy investigates their crawl space.

Everything is going well. They hear what sounds like a hiss and with relief exclaim that it's a raccoon.

They were wrong. Like pee your pants, everyone for themselves, wrong.

As the man tries to move whatever is blocking access to the crawl space, he stands back and sprays something into the small opening. Another man is seen holding a broom to help shoo the little mask-wearing friend on its way, when the panel that closes the area starts to move, right before it busts open from the inside.

In that moment, the man forgot he had a wife and a friend. He ran as he yelled, "Oh, it's a bear!"

If you live in an area that frequently has bear sightings, it's important to remember that bears like to hide in dark cool places, like crawl spaces or under a pool deck. So secure your crawl spaces and other areas around your home that might make a bear think it's a good place to take a long nap. No one wants to explain why they hurdled their kids and stiff-armed their grandma to get back into their house.

Watch the video below:

@badthingswithfunnypeople

Didn’t see that coming!😂🤣#fyp #Fyp #fypシ #foryou #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp #viral #viralvideo #viraltiktok #foryoupage #funny #funnyvideos #funnyvideo #funnyvideos😂 #funnyy #ohno #bear #bears #bearsoftiktok #uhoh #uhohspaghettios #uhohgottago #crazy #crazystory4

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Forget Congress. It's the annual 'Fat Bear Week' election and everyone needs to vote right now.

Now, this is body positivity.

Photo by Mark Basarab on Unsplash

It's Fat Bear Week and we pick the winner.

Everyone knows that fat animals are infinitely more visually appealing, much to veterinarians' collective dismay. They may not be at their pinnacle of health, yet we love them anyway, especially when they're babies. Bears, however, are supposed to get chunky so they get a pass. Before the winter when they hibernate, they're all about feeding their faces and storing fat for the winter. Wildlife archivists Explore has put all these fat bears in one place so we can vote on who gets to be supreme Fat Bear. Fat Bear Week is an annual event that anyone with internet access can participate in.

The bears, unfortunately, don't win any prizes for being named the fattest bear in Alaska, but America wins a prize by seeing big fuzzy bear bellies. Sure, the bears make you wish you could pet them and give them all the head scratches, and yes they'd probably try to eat you if you actually tried. That doesn't stop this from being the cutest competition out there. The event is well run, with brackets to predict the winner. I don't know what brackets are but it makes it sound so much more exciting.

Photo by Rey Emsen on Unsplash

When exactly is Fat Bear Week, you may be asking? It's now, like right now, so go download your bracket thingy and enter your picks or whatever you do with brackets. Fat Bear Week runs from October 5 through October 11 and match-ups for voting start at 12 p.m. and end at 9 p.m. EST. This contest is ruthless because there are no second chances. If a bear's extra fluff isn't up to the internet's standards then it's eliminated. No take backs.

For every head-to-head match-up between chubby little cubbies, you get one vote to pick the bear that's showing the most fat gained. The bear with the most votes gets to move to the next round and the bear with the least amounts of votes gets to no longer be judged by random strangers on the internet. Wait, I think we all would like the prize of not being judged by strangers on the internet.

This all may seem like a weird thing to have turned into a competition but it really isn't. Fat Bear Week started in 2013 after someone took pictures of the same bear from the bear cam and commented on how fat the bear had gotten when preparing for hibernation. According to video journalist Mike Fritz, he noticed comments under the videos of the bears from the bear cam about how chubby all of the bears were getting, and an idea was born.

Can you blame the commenters? These fat bears are seriously cute and once I figure out what brackets are and how to use them, I'm going to vote in this unexpectedly wholesome contest. May the fattest bear win and come out of hibernation looking as if they haven't skipped a meal and are well rested. Now, go vote! It'll make you feel better.

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People are hilariously debating how pandas survive in the wild

Buitengebieden/Twitter, @ArtMcFall/Twitter

No longer an endangered species, pandas seem to thrive on being goofy.

Pandas aren't real. They can't be. There's no way this big, bumbly black-and-white bear that somersaults down hills and noshes on bamboo all day long actually exists.

Have you ever seen any other animal on Earth that looks remotely like a panda? No, you haven't. Why? Because they're not real. No animal could be that adorable and hilarious and stuffed-animal-like in real life.

I kid, of course. Kind of. Pandas are just the cutest goofballs in nature. They barely look real when you just see them in still shots, but when you see them in action, it's just silly shenanigan after silly shenanigan.

I mean, look at this:

And this:

And yet again:

Seriously, how do these creatures survive in the wild?

There are some hilarious theories. Twitter user "Art McFall" shares the idea that they simply aren't real. "They're actors in suits, originally created as a prank for a World's Fair in 1908," they wrote. "It's got out of hand and now the Chinese government run a school where 1,000 panda artists train and are then sent around the world as covert animal ambassadors for China."

Okay, but if you go back and watch those videos again picturing people in panda suits, it doesn't seem too far-fetched.

Some shared a theory that they're basically stoned all the time—that the bamboo they eat has some kind of effect on their energy. (Pandas are mostly vegetarian, with almost all of their diet coming from bamboo. It doesn't give them food poisoning as is posited below, and in fact digests almost like meat for them. But it does take a really long time to eat enough of it to sustain their huge bods, so they spend a lot of time sitting around looking like they've got the munchies.)

More fun panda facts:

Did you know that pandas will sometimes climb trees backwards, hind feet first, until they're in a full handstand so they can whizz higher up on the tree to mark their scent? Yup. (They also poo up to 40 times a day. So no, you really don't want a pet panda. Sorry.)

Scientists aren't totally sure why they're black-and-white. Could be camouflage, especially in the snowy areas of China where they live, but they don't really have a need for camo since they have very few natural predators.

(Take note, humans: If we could maybe stop killing each other for two seconds, we too could live a silly life full of carefree fun like pandas do.)

This description was my favorite, though:

"Dis iz a bear. She lives on da mountains, this is how they have evolved to travel. They are floooooof and they are sof and warms. They have no dangers but humans. They are peace and love and bamboo. Save da bears."

Floooooof!

"If a bear starts rolling fast enough it can orbit the earth." Sounds right to me.

But pandas will never roll that fast. Case in point:

So yeah, pandas are real. And if you want to know the answer to the original question, they survive in the wild by being not nearly as playful as they are in captivity. Thankfully, giant pandas are no longer listed as endangered thanks to conservation efforts in China and around the globe. Let's keep up that energy so we can keep these marvelous creatures thriving both in the wild and in captivity when they can't be released.

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