Why do people love dogs and not bats?

I'm fascinated by cultural views of animals, as well as how they're used. I'm an anthropology major, trying to go into archaeology, and if I can ever focus studies in this I totally will.

Also, the image in the article states that Native Americans once kept tamed moose, bison, wolves, bears, and raccoons... I wanna know where they got that information.
 
Mighty orca is correct in doubting that article. Keeping animals as pets is not domestication. Domestic animals breed under human care for several generations and are dependent on human assistance for survival. Wild animal pets are not domesticated. Mesoamerican societes domesticated the turkey and the dog, maybe the duck, but that is about it. However many wild animals were kept as pets and for ritual purposes.
Mighty orca, you have a great future in zooarcheology where much remains to be discovered and studied.
 
There are indeed some rather dubious statements in this article. Just a few examples:

"Men who owned horses, for example, tended to be aggressive, while horse-owning women tended to be easygoing." Obviously, the author has never been around female equestrians for a longer period of time (especially with the (sub)urban type)...and you don't call it "aggressive", but "goal-driven" or "competitive" (at least among the females^^).

"Bird owners were expressive and outgoing." There's a reason why you call strange individuals an odd duck...

"Snake owners were unconventional, not that anyone really needed a study to figure that out." Pfft; you should see the many ordinary people keeping and breeding snakes. Your accountant, doctor or bus driver might be one.

"For people who cuddle capybaras and tame tapirs, perhaps Fido and Fluffy would be annoying pests." Nope; that are probably the very names of said capy and tapir...
 
carlos55 said:
Mighty orca is correct in doubting that article. Keeping animals as pets is not domestication. Domestic animals breed under human care for several generations and are dependent on human assistance for survival. Wild animal pets are not domesticated. Mesoamerican societes domesticated the turkey and the dog, maybe the duck, but that is about it. However many wild animals were kept as pets and for ritual purposes.
Mighty orca, you have a great future in zooarcheology where much remains to be discovered and studied.
Click to expand...

The article doesn't seem to suggest that keeping an animal is domestication, but it does make a lot of questionable claims. It also seems to equate keeping an animal with seeing it as a pet. Even if Native Americans did keep moose or bison, that doesn't mean they were doing it for fun or companionship.

And thanks for the encouragement. I originally wanted to go into biology, but had trouble in some of the non-biology class required for the degree. Anthropology is great, though I still find myself drawn to animals and I'm fascinated in cultural views and depictions of animals and what forms them. My university offered an anthropology class on dogs and wolves, but the professor went to another school so it got cancelled. Shame, I really wanted to take it.

Side note, if bats made good pets I would absolutely get one.
 
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"Animals that are “ugly” attract little scientific funding and investigation compared to more attractive creatures in Australia, resulting to poor conservation, a new study has found.

Researchers from Murdoch University found that animals in Australia that scientists think are ugly, received little scientific attention compared to those that are more pleasing. Kangaroos and koalas, which are deemed aesthetically pleasing animals, are subjected to more scientific studies than bats and rodents.

Published in Mammal Review, the study shows how “ugly” animals are not being studied enough, that could help preserve and protect them, especially that most are now considered threatened species. The last Christmas Island pipistrelle (Pipistrellus murrayi) died about six years ago, because funding to conduct studies to help these animals was scarce."

Read more: Australia’s ugly mammals fail to catch the eye of scientists
 
The good, the bad, and the ugly: which Australian terrestrial mammal species attract most research?

Abstract

1. The Australian mammalian fauna is marked by high endemism and evolutionary distinctiveness and comprises monotreme, marsupial, and eutherian (‘placental’) native species. It has suffered the highest extinction rate of any mammalian fauna in any global region; surviving species are threatened by competition and predation from a range of introduced mammal species, and receive low levels of conservation-oriented funding compared with species in many other countries.

2. We investigated research foci on this unique fauna by using species h-indices (SHI), and identified both taxonomic bias and subject bias in research effort and research impact for 331 Australian terrestrial mammal species. Species broadly fell into categories we labelled as the ‘good’, the ‘bad’, and the ‘ugly’.

3. The majority of studies on monotremes and marsupials (the ‘good’) are directed towards their physiology and anatomy, with a smaller ecological focus. By contrast, introduced eutherians (the ‘bad’) have attracted greater attention in terms of ecological research, with greater emphasis on methods and technique studies for population control. Despite making up 45% of the 331 species studied, native rodents and bats (the ‘ugly’) have attracted disproportionately little study.

4. While research on invasive species is directed towards problem solving, many Australian native species of conservation significance have attracted little research effort, little recognition, and little funding. Current global and national conservation funding largely overlooks non-charismatic species, and yet these species may arguably be most in need of scientific and management research effort.

Source:

Fleming, Patricia A. and Bateman, Philip W. (2016). The good, the bad, and the ugly: which Australian terrestrial mammal species attract most research? Mammal Review. doi: 10.1111/mam.12066
 
Surroundx said:
"Animals that are “ugly” attract little scientific funding and investigation compared to more attractive creatures in Australia, resulting to poor conservation, a new study has found.

Researchers from Murdoch University found that animals in Australia that scientists think are ugly, received little scientific attention compared to those that are more pleasing. Kangaroos and koalas, which are deemed aesthetically pleasing animals, are subjected to more scientific studies than bats and rodents.

Published in Mammal Review, the study shows how “ugly” animals are not being studied enough, that could help preserve and protect them, especially that most are now considered threatened species. The last Christmas Island pipistrelle (Pipistrellus murrayi) died about six years ago, because funding to conduct studies to help these animals was scarce."

Read more: Australia’s ugly mammals fail to catch the eye of scientists
Click to expand...

Not really a surprised to us ZooChatters, who often lament the lack of less popular, less attractive species in zoos, ha ha.
 
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