Posts tagged domestication
So, I've decided that in my fantasy fiction, I want to have Megabara riders. Massive Capybaras, being ridden into a battle. I've done some basic research and I came across this extinct species tha...
In prehistoric times, there used to be a dwarf elephant species in many Mediterranean islands. They were about 1.5-2 meters high, but probably became extinct before the arrival of the first human b...
All our mammalian friends are replaced by domesticated giant insects! Man's best friend are now dog-sized hissing cockroaches, fireflies are lighting our houses and harvestmen are used for transpor...
Mounts are one of the coolest things about fantasy in my opinion. Riding around on raptors, dragons, elephants and even weirder things is one of the main draws to a lot of fantasy things. However,...
In my story, there is a civilization living in the Amazon rainforest. They need some time of mount that is adapted to the forest. I don't think horses can survive by themselves in there, so I was t...
So I've been thinking for a while about making a world where cats aren't as common and instead are more of a regional domesticated animal, replaced in (mostly Northwestern) Europe by foxes. How co...
What makes an animal suitable for domestication? I know it has something to do with the danger to productivity ratio. But this is not helpful for fantasy animals in the worlds we build. What factor...
Description So fellas have you ever head of pig from hell, well if you haven't its called the Entelodont and it is an extinct pig like omnivorous mammal that resembles a giant boar. It is thought ...
Assuming that horses went extinct early in history, what would replace the horse, and how would the change in domesticated animal affect the development of the first civilizations? Info on horse e...
I have had an ingenious idea of combining the two most dangerous creatures the world has ever seen by using my massive and titanic intellect. Mankind, the deadliest land mammal, and sharks, the mos...
What qualities about a land-dwelling creature are absolutely necessary to maintain an effective herd of that creature for food and/or resources? Assume this is an earth-like environment.
So in this book series I'm writing (link here if you want to know more about that), there is this planet called Ryu 108. The planet is made up of two continents. The southern continent is heavily f...
This is question is related to the medieval world from my earlier question in which several types of intelligent hominids evolved in isolation, until they were rediscovered, conquered, and bred int...
As a variation to my previous question about the domestication of microbes So my question is : which animals lend themselves to domestication?
What marine or brackish water animals would be best for domestication attempts by a semi-aquatic civilization? Bonus Points for those that get me pet/domesticated sharks!
Let us assume that we are settlers on some alien land and we run into a terrestrial, territorial pack carnivore among the local fauna. This animal has many of the traits needed for domestication: ...
BACKGROUND I'm working on a medieval world in which homo sapiens domesticated several other species of intelligent hominids during their prehistory, at first enslaving them to take advantage of sp...
The Serval is a fairly muscular, dog sized African wild cat. While doing research on them for other worldbuilding purposes, I began to think that these animals could make great hunting pets, if t...
The article Why Can't All Animals Be Domesticated? on Live Science sets out a list of criteria that a species needs to meet in order to be successfully domesticated by humans. In short, that list s...
The Scenario: My late Victorian Era mad scientist wants to domesticate the dinosaurs and mammalian megafauna of his "Lost World" island getaway, for use as companions, guardians, draft animals, and...
Here are some lists of North American and South American megafauna that went extinct during the Quaternary. In Eurasia, many species of large mammal were domesticated, most particularly the 'big 4...
It has become common knowledge among mammalologists that the origins of our most iconic rides, the horse, stemmed from the tarpan, a breed of wild horse that became extinct as recently as 1909 CE. ...
On my planet, the only animals are plankton, krill, shrimp, etc., but no fish or land animals. The colonists on this planet have brought equipment and embryos from the home world, but the only free...
I have a native tribe in pre-Columbus America that has successfully domesticated small, omnivorous bears. They are similar in size to Sun Bears [120"“150 cm (47"“59 in) / 27"“80 kg (60"“176 lb)]. I...
In my story, a group of people were stranded on an uninhabited 600 km2 sized island. They were forced to glide there due to fuel starvation of the airplane. Its only "domesticated" animal are feral...
The Collared Peccary is not the name of the greatest man stripper under the sun, but is a species of mammal in the family Tayassuidae found in North, Central, and South America. They are commonly r...
In the real world we live in, people mostly domesticated herbivores like cattle. Some of the reasons for this are: They are efficient in terms of cost and profit. A cow simply takes in grass whic...
I am trying my hand at a matriarchal society (human beings, technology similar to Earth's 13th - 16th century), and I find that for that to work they will need reasonably efficient contraceptives (...
There are various arguments on the web stating that the domestication of zebras is impossible, because zebras are bad tempered and skittish, and/or animals elsewhere are even-tempered and friendly....
Domestication of otherwise wild animals go way back. Cats have been our best weapons against rodents for 10,000 years. We had been breeding sheep and goats for their milk and mutton for almost as...
The world of Baros (b'a:rəs) has low gravity (around 0.5g), thick, moist atmosphere (2-3 bar), and lots of volcanoes. Humans mostly inhabit sunny elevated areas, separated by relatively dark and C...
Assuming planet Earth, with considerable amounts of pets per household (96 million cats in the US alone), what would be the social and ecological consequences of all domestic cats acquiring flight ...
