Elephants may be domesticating themselves

Re:Elephants may be domesticating themselves by FredPret on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @12:06PM (#36046320)

Humans are incredibly badass physically once they reach adulthood. We have endurance, immune systems, and digestive systems that seem tailor-made for world domination. (you could walk a horse to death, and that's an animal we bred for endurance)

The catch is you have to be smart to take advantage of these things.

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Re:Elephants may be domesticating themselves by TrainedMonkey on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @12:13PM (#36046407)

And tool usage, turns out articulated appendages with articulated grippy sausages are effective, energy efficient, and can apply both power and precision.

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Re:Elephants may be domesticating themselves by kfrzcode on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @12:19PM (#36046485)

Maybe this is why Octopi are so efficient and smart? They forgo the hinges and just have a grippy sausage tube x 8

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Re:Elephants may be domesticating themselves by tourmalinetaco on Wednesday May 24, 2023 @02:45AM (#36054876)

Rather than grippy sausage tube, I believe the proper term would be sucky sushi rolls.

On a more serious note, it may be due to similar genetics to humans, specifically the LINE family of transposons.[0] Though, maybe they’re just aliens.[1]

[0] - https://www.livescience.com/jumping-genes-octopus-intelligen...

[1] - https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/123479-trending-science-...

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Re:Elephants may be domesticating themselves by byby on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @12:55PM (#36047117)

I've heard of the fact we have more endurance then the horse but walk one to death? Source? Or deeper explanation?

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Re:Elephants may be domesticating themselves by DicIfTEx on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @01:05PM (#36047297)

I think they're referring to humans' ability to conduct persistence hunting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting

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Re:Elephants may be domesticating themselves by byby on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @01:10PM (#36047388)

I'm aware of this. We can run down a cheetah or bunny.

But we can't actually run down a horse. Only top ultra marathoners can do that.

But walking down a horse? Really?

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Re:Elephants may be domesticating themselves by hguant on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @01:36PM (#36047815)

Yes.

Horses are incredibly fragile, and over long distances would prefer to be moving at human walking speed.

Horses also require continuous grazing to sustain themselves, and because of how their digestive tracts work, really need time to amass energy.

It's not a question of "running down a horse." It's a question of heat exchange and endurance. Humans are incredibly efficient at maintaining homeostasis "under load." Horses are not.

If you read a histories any war/conflict where there are large numbers of horses involved, a common theme is them just dropping dead of exhaustion along the side of the trail, because they can't sustain the pace of the army marching with them.

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Re:Elephants may be domesticating themselves by byby on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @01:43PM (#36047927)

>If you read a histories any war/conflict where there are large numbers of horses involved, a common theme is them just dropping dead of exhaustion along the side of the trail, because they can't sustain the pace of the army marching with them.

This is assuming that most of the army were full of people walking and the horses walking along side were getting exhausted? So an average human can walk down a horse?

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