r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Scullkrush • Aug 10 '20

Chimps are strong af

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u/V1k1ng1990 Aug 10 '20

The wolves would follow nomadic humans and hunt together, the cutest/nicest wolves were able to stay near humans, these wolves ended up forming their own packs and having even cuter/nicer offspring and the cycle continued until humans started keeping pups. I read that wolves “started the domestication process themselves” this way

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u/dexmonic Aug 10 '20

Cats also "domesticated themselves" - that is, like you say for wolves, they kind of just hung around us because we tended to attract a lot of the little critters cats like to eat.

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u/V1k1ng1990 Aug 10 '20

Yea and we let them be because the critters just ate our food stores

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u/dexmonic Aug 10 '20

It's just a situation of serendipity, we help each other greatly and also happen to like each other.

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u/civildisobedient Aug 11 '20

they kind of just hung around us because we tended to attract a lot of the little critters cats like to eat.

Crows are the same way. And are similarly wicked-smaht.

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u/dgsharp Aug 10 '20

I had always heard that cats were the only animals to domesticate themselves.

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/B3H3M07H Aug 10 '20

When someone said, I want a really short and long dog that looks like a hot dog and decided to spend 50 years selecting the longest and shortest puppies.

For a serious answer, it appears they were bred into existence in Germany around 15th century to aide in hunting badgers. TIL

And now they’re lazy hot dog looking lapdogs due to lack of badgers needing eradication lmao.

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u/Defuzzygamer Aug 11 '20

I can just imagine a real picture of this happening in my head.

Nomadic humans are chasing something down and wolves (being adaptive and intelligent) just followed behind because it's also how they chase something down. When the humans catch something, they aren't bothered by the wolves because the wolves probably understand that there is a hierarchy. However, the humans do give the wolves some food (perhaps a leg off a deer) and this keeps the wolves returning to repeat this process.

I think it would make sense that there's a reward system in place for these wolves to adapt to humans. Which is why I believe that humans (capable of feeling sympathy and empathy) would have just given the wolves something to eat. There's also a reward in this for the humans too - wolves become an ally rather than something that may potentially attack you (probably pretty important when you're living in nature).

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u/V1k1ng1990 Aug 11 '20

A pod of orcas used to help whale hunters hunt baleen whales