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!
Not to add on to this already super long post, but I wanted to address some tags and reblogs!
Please consider, their name:
Betta means “fighter.” Betta splendens means “Splendid Fighter.” Bettas are well known for being territorial, and they were initially bred for aggression and subjected to cockfighting-type matches which people would bet on. These bettas had shorter tails like their wild counterparts, as the long tails would have created drag and given opposing fish more surface area to tear into. It wasn’t until the early 20th century when they started being bred for color and fins and became more of a display fish.
As for rats…
Well, they weren’t bred for fighting each other…
Rat-catchers in 18th and 19th century Europe were trappers who would catch wild rats and either kill them or sell them to be used in rat-baiting. Rat-baiting involved throwing a bunch of rats into a pit and making bets on how long it would take a terrier to kill them all. This was a lucrative sport, and some rat-catchers bred rats to sell as well. The two men most often credited for starting the domestication of rats were rat-catchers: Jack Black (no, not that one), the “royal rat-catcher”, and Jimmy Shaw (also not that one), manager of a large sporting house. Jack Black especially was known for breeding rats with prettier colors and markings, dressing them in ribbons, and selling them to “sophisticated ladies of court.” Some of his customers included author Beatrix Potter and Queen Victoria. Rat fancy became more formal when Mary Douglas got permission to enter her black and white hooded rat into a National Mouse Club show in 1901, and won “Best in Show.”
While axolotls were considered a staple of Aztec diets (and are pronounced “ash-o-lout” in Nahuatl, so let’s normalize not using the anglicized pronounciation) since being captive bred they have been used all over the world for different purposes. While it’s mostly scientific research, they are also bred in Japan and sold in wet markets as food.
These people are right about the snakes and I should have specified that. My examples were more to show how human breeding can hurt the animals involved, and the examples used may have been misleading.
Scottish folds are indeed a mutation of the Scottish longhair, however there are certainly breeds of cats in the same way there are breeds of dog. Just look at an Oriental Shorthair or a Pixie-bob and tell me those are “morphs.” I’ve worked with ragdolls, sphynx cats, and maine coons, definitely all seperate, distinct breeds. It’s just that most of the cats being bred and ending up in shelters in the USA are American Shorthairs and sometimes American Longhairs, so those are the ones you see represented the most.
one day I woke up and realised all the waiting and yearning was actually me living my life and it’s happening right now and it’s still good even if it’s not perfect and there is no moment when all your dreams get fulfilled and everything makes sense. like… this is it. this is life. you’ll waste away your youth waiting for some imagined future if you don’t love life for what it is now and make the most of it
God I hate these fucking floating monoliths. They always go, like, 10mph below the speed limit and if you try to pass them they just fucking distort reality around them until you're back behind them again. One of them cut me off on the highway once and when I honked it banished me to a hoary netherworld where I wandered, lost and alone, for untold centuries, trapped in the liminal space between what could have been and what never was, black stars dotting the bright infinity yawning out around me as I drove out of thought and time, through endless ruined cities and blighted lands unmarked by the sun's cold rays, and when I finally got out I was more than 20m late for my dentist appointment and they had to reschedule me.
Doberman boyfriend who would kill anyone who looks at you wrong. Doberman boyfriend that is loud and mean and agressive but not towards you becauss they see you like a pathetic fawn with a broken leg and you bring out their protectve instincts front and center. Doberman boyfriend that sinks his sharp fangs in deep and hard because no matter how feircely he wants to protect you, he also wants to feel the soft give of your tender flesh as he tears you apart himself.
Listen dude, I knew we went on that magical adventure to nutritionland. We learned a lot from president cauliflower. But I'm gonna be real dude, I think nutritionland is an ethnostate.
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