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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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Watch this breathtaking rescue of an elephant and her calf in Thailand

Elephant CPR is amazing to witness.

Photo by Harshil Gudka on Unsplash

Rescue of an elephant and her calf.

We're normally taught to leave nature alone, especially concerning animals big enough to maul or trample us or generally make surviving an encounter an odds game. But sometimes those wild animals need us, and this intense video of veterinarians in Thailand rescuing an elephant and her calf prove just that. On a rainy day in Thailand, a mama elephant and her baby got stuck in a drain before rescuers could get them out.

Elephants are the world's largest land animal, have memories that are uncanny and mourn loss in a very human way. In fact, African elephants have been observed standing vigil as they mourn a herd member that has died. This human-like mourning may be what draws people to the large majestic animal, and that’s a good thing because about 90% of African elephants have been killed in the last century due to the ivory trade. Asian elephants’ numbers are also declining as they lose their habitat to human infrastructure.

Seeing people work together to get the mama elephant breathing and rescue her baby from the drain brings about a whole different level of heartwarming. The veterinarians don’t hesitate to climb up on top of the massive animal and use their team's whole weight to give it CPR. It’s magnificent to see. Until this video, I didn’t even know elephants could receive CPR.

After a few attempts to get the mama’s heart beating, it finally worked. We see the mama and baby snuggling together as the team of humans backs away and watches with joy and exhaustion.

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Baby elephants can't control their trunks and it's hilarious to see them try

Caters Clips/YouTube

Watching a baby elephant learning to wield its trunk is so darn cute.

Baby elephants are already adorable without having to do a thing. But watching them learn how to do things is extra adorable, and watching them learn how to use their own body is super extra adorable.

Like most four-legged creatures, elephants are able to walk within hours of birth. They have to be able to stand under their mother's belly to breastfeed, and they have to be able to follow the herd as it moves around. Their trunk, however, is an entirely different story. Because they drink their mother's milk exclusively for the first six months and still rely on her milk in addition to other foods for years afterward, they don't have a need to use their trunk for eating right away. It takes time to learn how to wield that long dangly thing hanging from the front of their faces.

In fact, some baby elephants seem to "discover" their trunks much in the same way that human babies discover their hands and feet. Have you ever seen a baby suddenly look at their hands in amazement, moving them around with the first semblance of recognition that they are attached to their body? Watch these baby elephants doing the same thing with their trunks.

Cute Elephant Discovers Trunk

This little elephant looks like it's trying to shake that thing off of its face. It even bops at it with its foot. You can almost see that moment of recognition when it realizes it's actually attached and that it can move it around, however haphazardly. And then it just flings it up and down and around and around, sometimes trying to catch it in its mouth, sometimes trying to catch it with its foot. It's so all over the place, it's hilarious.

The ranger's blog at South Africa's Tintswalo Safari Lodge explains:

"At first, baby elephants don’t really know what to do with their trunks. It’s amusing to watch as the calves swing them to and fro and sometimes even step on them. They will stick their trunk in their mouth just as a human baby might suck its thumb. With more than 50,000 individual muscle units in the trunk, it’s a complex skill to learn.

By about 6 to 8 months, calves begin learning to use their trunks to eat and drink. By the time they are a year old, they can control their trunks pretty well and, like adult elephants, use their trunks for grasping, eating, drinking, bathing."

This kiddo hasn't quite gotten the hang of the whole eating with the trunk thing. Either that, or it's showing off how well it can fling it around, but either way, it's so dang cute.

Once they do learn to use them well, there's almost nothing they can't do with their trunks. As Katherine J. Wu writes in The Atlantic, "The trunk of an African elephant is an evolutionary marvel. Clocking in at weights well over 200 pounds, it ripples with thousands of individual muscles that help the superlong schnoz lift barbells, uproot trees, and fling bothersome lions into the air." Wu shared that elephants can also pick up a tortilla chip—notoriously fragile—without breaking it.

“It’s a muscular multi-tool,” Georgia Tech engineer Andrew Schulz told Wu. “It pushes all of the extremes of what we understand animals to be able to do.”

Freaking amazing. All the more reason to protect our planetary home and the creatures we share it with.

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The 'Big 5' were trophy hunters' most prized kills. Now there's a 'New Big 5' to 'shoot.'

Photo by Mike Marrah on Unsplash

The "Big 5" is an old term from the colonial era, denoting the five wild animals in Africa that were the most sought-after kills for trophy hunters. Killing those five—lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo—meant ultimate success in the big-game hunting world.

Now there's a "New Big 5," but instead of a barbaric goal for trophy hunters, it's a beautiful goal for wildlife photographers.

The initiative was created by British wildlife photographer Graeme Green with the goal of raising awareness about threats to the world's animals including habitat loss, poaching, illegal animal trade, and climate change. In a global call for votes, 50,000 wildlife lovers shared which animals they most wanted to photograph or see in photos. And the winners are:

Elephant. Polar bear. Lion. Gorilla. Tiger.

These five animals will serve as global ambassadors for all the world's wildlife, including the one million species currently threatened with extinction.

The New Big 5 of Wildlife Photography - The Resultsyoutu.be

New Big 5 project founder Graeme Green said in a statement, "The 5 animals that wildlife lovers around the world have voted to include in the New Big 5 of Wildlife Photography — elephants, gorillas, tigers, lions, and polar bears — are not just some of the most beautiful, incredible animals on the planet. All 5 also face serious threats to their existence. The New Big 5 are the tip of the iceberg. They stand for all the creatures on the planet, so many of which are in danger. From bees to blue whales, all wildlife is essential to the balance of nature, to healthy ecosystems and to the future of our planet."

Jane Goodall has also praised the initiative, saying, "We now have the results of the New Big 5 project. These 5 animals — elephants, polar bears, gorillas, tigers, and lions — are such beautiful and remarkable species, and are wonderful ambassadors for the world's wildlife, from iconic species to little-known frogs, lizards, fish and birds. So many face threats to their survival from issues such as poaching, habitat loss and climate change. A million species are at risk of extinction. If we work together, we can stop this from happening. There is always hope. Change is possible if we each play our part."

The New Big 5 project encourages travelers to visit the places where these animals are found and support conservation efforts in those areas. Ultimately, it's a celebration of wildlife and nature photography and a call to action to save species under threat.

Humanity has learned a lot since the original Big 5 days, but trophy hunting still exists and there's much to be done to protect the world's wildlife. Hopefully the New Big 5 will inspire more people to work on conserving the environment and protect ecosystems so that animal life large and small can flourish.

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