Phew. This one took, uh… a bit longer than expected due to other projects both irl and art-wise, but it’s finally here. The long-awaited domestic animal infographic! Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough space to cover every single domestic animal (I’m so sorry, reindeer and koi, my beloveds) but I tried to include as many of the “major ones” as possible.
I made this chart in response to a lot of the misunderstandings I hear concerning domestic animals, so I hope it’s helpful!
Further information I didn’t have any room to add or expand on:
🐈 “Breed” and “species” are not synonyms! Breeds are specific to domesticated animals. A Bengal Tiger is a species of tiger. A Siamese is a breed of domestic cat.
🐀 Different colors are also not what makes a breed. A breed is determined by having genetics that are unique to that breed. So a “bluenose pitbull” is not a different breed from a “rednose pitbull”, but an American Pitbull Terrier is a different breed from an American Bully! Animals that have been domesticated for longer tend to have more seperate breeds as these differing genetics have had time to develop.
🐕 It takes hundreds of generations for an animal to become domesticated. While the “domesticated fox experiment” had interesting results, there were not enough generations involved for the foxes to become truly domesticated and their differences from wild foxes were more due to epigenetics (heritable traits that do not change the DNA sequence but rather activate or deactivate parts of it; owed to the specific circumstances of its parents’ behavior and environment.)
🐎 Wild animals that are raised in human care are not domesticated, but they can be considered “tamed.” This means that they still have all their wild instincts, but are less inclined to attack or be frightened of humans. A wild animal that lives in the wild but near human settlements and is less afraid of humans is considered “habituated.” Tamed and habituated animals are not any less dangerous than wild animals, and should still be treated with the same respect. Foxes, otters, raccoons, servals, caracals, bush babies, opossums, owls, monkeys, alligators, and other wild animals can be tamed or habituated, but they have not undergone hundreds of generations of domestication, so they are not domesticated animals.
🐄 Also, as seen above, these animals have all been domesticated for a reason, be it food, transport, pest control, or otherwise, at a time when less practical options existed. There is no benefit to domesticating other species in the modern day, so if you’ve got a hankering for keeping a wild animal as a pet, instead try to find the domestic equivalent of that wild animal! There are several dog breeds that look and behave like wolves or foxes, pigeons and chickens can make great pet birds and have hundreds of colorful fancy breeds, rats can be just as intelligent and social as a small monkey (and less expensive and dangerous to boot,) and ferrets are pretty darn close to minks and otters! There’s no need to keep a wolf in a house when our ancestors have already spent 20,000+ years to make them house-compatible.
🐖 This was stated in the infographic, but I feel like I must again reiterate that domestic animals do not belong in the wild, and often become invasive when feral. Their genetics have been specifically altered in such a way that they depend on humans for optimal health. We are their habitat. This is why you only really see feral pigeons in cities, and feral cats around settlements. They are specifically adapted to live with humans, so they stay even when unwanted. However, this does not mean they should live in a way that doesn’t put their health and comfort as a top priority! If we are their world, it is our duty to make it as good as possible. Please research any pet you get before bringing them home!
I am once again stating that the last part of the infograph was NOT an “adopt don’t shop” message and I assumed I clearly said “do not support unethical breeders,” as in breeders who breed more for aesthetics than health.
I did not mean for it to sound like I was calling all breeders unethical. It’s saying that if you truly want a breed with unethical traits, then it is better to adopt it than to encourage more breeding of that trait (though you could also buy from a breeder who is specifically avoiding those traits.) I’m sorry this point was not clear enough.
Also, I have been answering questions and adding a lot of clarification in the comments and reblogs here, but I’d like to address some of the points that keep coming up:
🔴 A “blood sport” is any sport or entertainment that involves intense fighting, bloodshed, and/or risk of death. There is a list of bloodsports on the Wikipedia page here. (I would highly recommend not looking too far into the animal-related ones as they are very upsetting. The 17th-18th century Europeans were barbaric.) A blood sport does not always entail “making animals fight each other.” See for example bullfighting, which involves a human fighting a bull. The bloodsport listed under fancy rats alludes to “rat-baiting” which involved throwing a bunch of rats in a pit for a terrier to kill, and taking bets on how long it took the dog to kill all the rats. This is not necessarily what they were domesticated for, but this was what led to fancy rats eventually being domesticated. The prettiest, nicest rats were spared from the pit, dressed in ribbons, and became pets.
🐓 I somehow forgot to add “bloodsport” under chickens, as well as “livestock guarding, companionship” under African/Chinese Geese. This was a lot of information to keep track of at once. :T Some breeds of chickens were definitely bred specifically for cockfighting, and African and Chinese Geese also make good guard animals.
🐄 While only some of the animals here have “companionship” listed under “bred for,” all of them could technically be kept for companionship. Those are just the species which have been specifically bred to be pets in the past or currently. While sheep can make good pets, there are no breeds that are specifically bred for that purpose, that I am aware of.
🍑 Asses were named before “ass” became a slang term for buttocks. In fact, the slang term was originally “arse,” a separate word from the animal, but the r was dropped in the 1860s. Etymology is interesting like that, and it’s unfortunate these beautiful endangered equids have to live at the whims of our ever changing vocabulary. Let’s not hold human language against them, eh?
🦎 There are certainly gray areas as to what makes a good pet and what doesn’t, especially when it comes to reptiles and invertebrates. In general, domestic species will always make better pets as they are specifically adapted to live with us and more resources are available for their care. Some reptiles, like corn snakes and bearded dragons, have adapted well to being bred in human care, and are easily tamed. But whether there are domestic non-avian reptiles is a point of contention. There are certainly many being bred in captivity for their colors and markings, but that does not make a species domesticated. Species that do exceedingly well in captivity, are not being captured from the wild to bolster the pet trade, and don’t have specialized diets or at least don’t have diets that are hard to replicate and make easily accessible to pet owners, are usually fine to keep as pets. (I myself have a corn snake, sand boa, crested gecko, and tarantulas.) It’s definitely a case by case basis. But you’re not gonna have as hard a time figuring out the ethics of keeping a particular pet if it’s a species that’s fully domesticated.
🐍 Oh yeah, and my examples at the end of the infograph were meant to be examples of unethical breeding and not examples of unethical breeds, but I unfortunately wasn’t clear about that. Spider is a morph of ball python, not a breed. There are no breeds of non-avian reptile, merely morphs which are aesthetic colors and/or patterns.
🐫 There are three species of camel alive today: the Domestic Dromedary, the Domestic Bactrian, and the Wild Bactrian. However, both wild ancestors of the Domestic Dromedary and the Domestic Bactrian are extinct. The Wild Bactrian was originally thought to be the ancestor of the Domestic Bactrian, but genetic studies have shown that these species diverged before humans were even a Thing. So, yes, there are still wild camels, but the Wild Bactrians are critically endangered and pretty rare. Most “wild” populations of camel today are actually feral.
🇲🇽 I was also a little confused about axolotls while researching this. The Aztecs did not domesticate them as far as I could find; they just hunted them. Scientists took them to France for scientific research and due to their high capacity for breeding and hybridization with tiger salamanders their gene pool is now quite different from that of wild axolotls. I listed “meat” in their “bred for” section because I found that they were raised for food in Japan, but apparently it is just this one specific restaurant in Osaka that serves them.
🐴 Like Wild and Domestic bactrian camels, Domestic Horses and Przewalski’s Horses diverged long before the domestication of the horse. There were apparently some attempts to domesticate Przewalski’s Horses in history, possibly resulting in the Botai horses, but the living population has never been domesticated, according to the most recent studies.
🐈 Cats are fully domesticated. They are very different from African Wildcats. They are not semi-domesticated or semi-wild, and they should not be allowed to roam outdoors unsupervised both for their own health and safety and the health of the environment.
