The most successful land-based hunters are variants of dogs and cats [1]. (House cats remain in the top ten.)
Humans broke the game by allying with or exterminating other apex predators. I don’t believe another double-apex alliance is seen anywhere else, in our biosphere or in the fossil record.
Should be noted that wild cats (felis silvestris, felis lybica, felis catus) are not "apex" predators based on hunting success or being obligate carnivores. It's a common misconception that cats were apex predators when they were domesticated. They are both predator and prey, firmly in the middle of the food chain, and as such have the instincts of both. "Apex predator" would mean taking down large animals like elk, which would obviously be ridiculous for a small cat unless the prey is literally immobile.
No, we broke the game by domestication, where we simplified hunting to walking the animal into the slaughterhouse. Mammalian wildlife is < 5% of mammalian biomass on earth, with humans being around 30% and domesticated animals being around 60% [1].
For example, there are around 30 billion chickens in the world, butchered within 6-8 weeks. Repeat.
Domestication was partly the result of not eliminating apex predators. A shepherd would guard a flock of sheep, and farmers would historically live/sleep near/with the animals, to protect them day and night.
By becoming fatter and more delicious, the wild jungle fowl have evolved to exploit the human desire for a reliable source of meat. Now they outnumber us by a factor of four! The chickens have won.
Interestingly, although giant asteroids have certainly been responsible for some of the mass extinctions we see in the fossil record, apparently super volcanoes are also right up there. And I don't think there is a damn thing we can do about them
> Tamer wolves would get more food, and the humans gradually came to rely on the wolves to clean up remains of messy carcasses and to raise the alarm if a predator came near.
The only thing I remember is he said dogs may have stuck around humans because, like wolves today do with others predators, they could follow them around and scavenge off their successful hunts. But it was also possible the wolves/dogs just really liked snacking in between meals. Wolves are very capable at finding their own food but they enjoyed some meat & bones thrown to them in between their daily rounds. That's what crossed the line between scavenging on the outside and a closer relationship.
> But it was also possible the wolves/dogs just really liked snacking in between meals.
My pet theory is that humans captured wolf pups, possibly by dealing with parents first, and kept them around as pets. People love playing with tiger, bear, and wolf pups and keeping them as pets today.
I read somewhere, that it might not have been a process, but a unique event. Dogs are not just gradually tamed wolves, but domestication might have been started with a genetic defect that made them tame.
did you ever hear the story about the Russian researcher who bred foxes into domestic pets within only about a dozen and a half dozen rounds of keeping only the "cutest" pups?
". Within just 15 generations of selective breeding, the experiment had yielded foxes that could live with people."
"There were no forests for the animal to hide in, and it had no fear of humans;[citation needed] it was possible to lure the animal with a chunk of meat held in one hand, and kill it with a knife held in the other"
Humans broke the game by allying with or exterminating other apex predators. I don’t believe another double-apex alliance is seen anywhere else, in our biosphere or in the fossil record.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_success
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