• bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
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    25 days ago

    What distinguishes zebras from horses is that zebras live in anonymous herds. That is, they like to clump together to ward off predators, but they don’t know or like each other. They are not a uniform group with a leader. Horses on the other hand do have authorities and followers among them. And humans can hijack the role of the leader.

    CGPGrey: The Real Reason We Don’t Ride Zebras (6:23)

    • stenAanden@feddit.dk
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      25 days ago

      This makes me wonder… How much of what he says is just conjecture? Do we ACTUALLY know with good certainty that zebras can’t be domesticated due to their nature? Or is it just a hypothesis/theory that has reached widespread popularity?

      I have heard that zebras (along with other African animals) can’t be domesticated because they have evolved to live among humans, when we were still man-apes. But that maybe that’s just conjecture too.

      Note how he have no sources in his video or description. And his comparison to chickens, cows, sheep and cats don’t seem to make much sense. The relation between humans and chickens/cows/sheep is markedly different from that of horses. Do wild fowl really have family structures? Cats don’t yet they are still docile among humans.

      Edit: even if we really can’t do we know the reason why?

        • stenAanden@feddit.dk
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          25 days ago

          But what if we spent longer time doing it? Like centuries, like with most other domesticated animals.

          • stray@pawb.social
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            25 days ago

            I’m not sure why you’ve been downvoted because you absolutely could domesticate them given sufficient time and consistent selective breeding. You could turn them into crabs if you wanted to. The trouble is that they don’t have a very social disposition, so no one is motivated to dedicating their entire bloodline to the project. Most domestication happened kind of on accident as we developed symbiotic or exploitative relationships with various species.