Human uses of mammals include both practical uses, such as for food, sport, and transport, and symbolic uses, such as in art and mythology. Mammals have played a crucial role in creating and sustaining human culture. Domestication of mammals was instrumental in the Neolithic Revolution's development of agriculture and of civilisation, causing farming to replace hunting and gathering around the world, and cities to replace scattered communities.
Mammals provide dairy products and much of the meat eaten by the human population, whether farmed or hunted. They also yielded leather and wool for clothing and equipment. Until the arrival of mechanised transport, domesticated mammals provided a large part of the power used for work and transport. They serve as models in biological research, such as in genetics, and in drug testing.
Mammals are the most popular of pets, with tens of millions of dogs, cats and other animals including rabbits and mice kept by families around the world. Mammals such as horses and deer are among the earliest subjects of art, being found in the Upper Paleolithic cave paintings such as at Lascaux. Major artists such as Albrecht Dürer, George Stubbs and Edwin Landseer are known for their portraits of animals. Animals further play a wide variety of roles in literature, film, mythology, and religion.
A major way that people relate to mammals (and some other animals) is by anthropomorphising them, ascribing human emotions and goals to them. This has been deprecated when it occurs in science, though more recently zoologists have taken a more lenient view of it.
Culture consists of the social behaviour and norms found in human societies and transmitted through social learning. Cultural universals in all human societies include expressive forms like art, music, dance, ritual, religion, and technologies like tool usage, cooking, shelter, and clothing. The concept of material culture covers physical expressions such as technology, architecture and art, whereas immaterial culture includes principles of social organization, mythology, philosophy, literature, and science. [1] This article describes the roles played by mammals in human culture, so defined.
Charles Darwin, Jared Diamond and others have noted the importance of domesticated mammals in the neolithic development of agriculture and of civilisation, causing farmers to replace hunter-gatherers around the world. [lower-alpha 1] [2] This transition from hunting and gathering to herding flocks and growing crops was a major step in human history. The new agricultural economies, based on domesticated mammals, caused "radical restructuring of human societies, worldwide alterations in biodiversity, and significant changes in the Earth's landforms and its atmosphere... momentous outcomes". [3]
Diamond observed that the large mammals that were domesticated were unusual in sharing a set of desirable characteristics. They consumed a diet that humans could readily supply; they grew rapidly and gave birth frequently; they had a mild disposition; they were willing to breed in captivity; they had convenient herd dominance hierarchies; and they remained calm in enclosures. [4] Carlos Driscoll and colleagues reached a similar conclusion, observing that "it was intelligently designed changes to the genetic composition of natural biota that made the real tools. In some sense, Neolithic farmers were the first geneticists and domestic agriculture was the lever with which they moved the world." Driscoll and colleagues list recurring characteristics of domesticated mammals as "dwarfs and giants, piebald coat color, wavy or curly hair, fewer vertebrae, shorter tails, rolled tails, and floppy ears or other manifestations of neoteny." [5]
Humans and their livestock make up more than 90% of the biomass of all terrestrial vertebrates, and almost as much as all insects combined. [6] Mammals form a large part of the livestock raised for meat and dairy products across the world, whether intensively farmed or by more or less mobile pastoralism. They include (2011) around 1.4 billion cattle, 1.2 billion sheep, 1 billion domestic pigs, [7] [8] and (1985) over 700 million rabbits. [9]
Cattle provide a large part of the leather used for clothing products such as shoes, handbags and belts, as well as for upholstery. Wool has been used for centuries for clothing including suits and tweed jackets as well as knitwear such as pullovers. The primary source of wool is sheep, but goats provide angora and cashmere, and alpacas provide a luxurious fleece. [10] [11]
Working domestic animals including cattle and horses have been used for work and transport from the origins of agriculture, their numbers declining with the arrival of mechanised transport and agricultural machinery. In 2004 they still provided some 80% of the power for the mainly small farms in the third world, and some 20% of the world's transport, again mainly in rural areas. In mountainous regions unsuitable for wheeled vehicles, pack animals continue to transport goods. [12]
Mammals serve a major role in science as experimental animals, both in fundamental biological research, such as in genetics, [13] and in the development of new medicines, which must be tested exhaustively to demonstrate their safety. [14] Millions of mammals, especially mice and rats, are used in experiments each year. [15] A knockout mouse is a genetically modified mouse with an inactivated gene, replaced or disrupted with an artificial piece of DNA. They enable the study of sequenced genes whose functions are unknown. [16] [17] A small percentage of the mammals are non-human primates, including the grivet, the rhesus macaque, and the crab-eating macaque, which are used in research for their similarity to humans. [18] [19] [20]
Mammals are the most popular pets in the Western world, with the most kept species being dogs, cats, and rabbits. For example, in America in 2012 there were some 78 million dogs, 86 million cats, and 3.5 million rabbits. [21] [22] [23]
There is a tension between the role of animals as companions to humans, and their existence as individuals with rights of their own. [24]
Mammals, including deer and wild boar, are among the game animals most often hunted for sport and for food. Predatory mammals, most often dogs, are used to help catch game, and to retrieve shot birds. [25] [26] [27]
Mammals are widely raced for sport, often combined with betting on the outcome, especially in horse racing and greyhound racing. [28] [29]
Mammals have been the subjects of art from the earliest times, both historical, as in Ancient Egypt, and prehistoric, as in the cave paintings at Lascaux and other sites in the Dordogne, France and elsewhere. Major animal paintings include Albrecht Dürer's 1515 The Rhinoceros , George Stubbs's c. 1762 horse portrait Whistlejacket , Edwin Landseer's 1851 The Monarch of the Glen , and Henri Rousseau's 1891 tiger in an imaginary landscape, Surprised! . [30]
Mammals from mice and foxes to elephants play a wide variety of roles in literature and media including photography and film. [31]
Mammals including cattle, [32] deer, [33] horses, [34] lions [35] and wolves, along with creatures derived from them, such as werewolves, [36] figure in mythology and religion. Jacques Cauvin has argued that Neolithic animal symbols, with early art depicting figures such as bull gods, derive from the critical importance of domesticated mammals in that period. [37] [38]
Soft toys often have the forms of juvenile mammals, especially bears. The teddy bear was developed apparently simultaneously by the toymakers Morris Michtom in America and Richard Steiff in Germany in the early years of the 20th century. It was named after the big game hunter President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt. The teddy bear became an iconic children's toy, celebrated in story, song, and film. [39]
Anthropomorphism, the attribution of human traits to animals, most commonly to mammals, is an important part of the way that people relate to mammals. [40] [41] Attitudes and behaviour to animals ranges from cruel to sentimental. [42]
In literature, fables such as those of Aesop have been told to teach wisdom through intentional fictions about characters such as apes, asses, bears, cats, sheep, deer, dogs, foxes, hares, horses, lions, and mice. [43] [44] Anthropomorphic children's literature became popular from the nineteenth century with works such as Lewis Carroll's 1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Rudyard Kipling's 1894 The Jungle Book . In the twentieth century, many of the most popular works for children have anthropomorphic characters, [45] [46] including Beatrix Potter's 1901 The Tale of Peter Rabbit , [47] Kenneth Grahame's 1908 The Wind in the Willows , and C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in all of which the animals, mainly mammals, wear human clothes and have human attributes of character. [48]
Anthropomorphic language, implying the existence of intentions and emotions in animals, was deprecated for most of the 20th century, as indicating a lack of scientific objectivity. [49] In 1927 Ivan Pavlov wrote that animals should be considered "without any need to resort to fantastic speculations as to the existence of any possible subjective states". [50] In 1987 The Oxford Companion to Animal Behaviour still advised that "one is well advised to study the behaviour rather than attempting to get at any underlying emotion". [51] Charles Darwin however had accepted the idea of emotion in animals, writing his 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals on the subject. [52] Darwin believed that mammals had social, mental and moral lives. In The Descent of Man (1871), he wrote: "There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties." [53]
Biologists remained wary of the idea, even for the great apes, but this led to serious difficulties, as Donald O. Hebb explained in 1946: [54]
A thoroughgoing attempt to avoid anthropomorphic description in the study of temperament was made over a two-year period at the Yerkes laboratories. All that resulted was an almost endless series of specific acts in which no order or meaning could be found. On the other hand, by the use of frankly anthropomorphic concepts of emotion and attitude one could quickly and easily describe the peculiarities of individual animals... Whatever the anthropomorphic terminology may seem to imply about conscious states in chimpanzee, it provides an intelligible and practical guide to behavior. [54]
In the 1960s the three leading primatologists nicknamed "Leakey's Angels", Jane Goodall studying chimpanzees, Dian Fossey studying gorillas and Biruté Galdikas studying orangutans, were all accused of "that worst of ethological sins – anthropomorphism" as they sought to explain primate behaviour using empathy. [55] The primatologist Frans de Waal summarised the dilemma: "To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us." [56]
A mammal is a vertebrate animal of the class Mammalia. Mammals are characterized by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three middle ear bones. These characteristics distinguish them from reptiles and birds, from which their ancestors diverged in the Carboniferous Period over 300 million years ago. Around 6,400 extant species of mammals have been described and divided into 29 orders.
Domestication is a multi-generational mutualistic relationship between humans and other organisms, in which humans took over control and care to obtain a steady supply of resources including food. The process was gradual and geographically diffuse, based on trial and error.
Animal husbandry is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, fibre, milk, or other products. It includes day-to-day care, management, production, nutrition, selective breeding, and the raising of livestock. Husbandry has a long history, starting with the Neolithic Revolution when animals were first domesticated, from around 13,000 BC onwards, predating farming of the first crops. By the time of early civilisations such as ancient Egypt, cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs were being raised on farms.
Ruminants are herbivorous grazing or browsing artiodactyls belonging to the suborder Ruminantia that are able to acquire nutrients from plant-based food by fermenting it in a specialized stomach prior to digestion, principally through microbial actions. The process, which takes place in the front part of the digestive system and therefore is called foregut fermentation, typically requires the fermented ingesta to be regurgitated and chewed again. The process of rechewing the cud to further break down plant matter and stimulate digestion is called rumination. The word "ruminant" comes from the Latin ruminare, which means "to chew over again".
A feral animal or plant is one that lives in the wild but is descended from domesticated individuals. As with an introduced species, the introduction of feral animals or plants to non-native regions may disrupt ecosystems and has, in some cases, contributed to extinction of indigenous species. The removal of feral species is a major focus of island restoration.
Comparative psychology refers to the scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of non-human animals, especially as these relate to the phylogenetic history, adaptive significance, and development of behavior. The phrase comparative psychology may be employed in a narrow and a broad meaning. In its narrow meaning, it refers to the study of the similarities and differences in the psychology and behavior of different species. In a broader meaning, comparative psychology includes comparisons between different biological and socio-cultural groups, such as species, sexes, developmental stages, ages, and ethnicities. Research in this area addresses many different issues, uses many different methods and explores the behavior of many different species from insects to primates.
Paratuberculosis is a contagious, chronic and sometimes fatal infection that primarily affects the small intestine of ruminants. It is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis. Infections normally affect ruminants, but have also been seen in a variety of nonruminant species, including rabbits, foxes, and birds. Horses, dogs, and nonhuman primates have been infected experimentally. Paratuberculosis is found worldwide, with some states in Australia being the only areas proven to be free of the disease. At least in Canada, the signs of BJD usually start when cattle are four to seven years of age, and then usually only are diagnosed in one animal at a time. Cattle "with signs of Johne’s disease shed billions of bacteria through their manure and serve as a major source of infection for future calves."
The domesticated silver fox is a form of the silver fox that has been to some extent domesticated under laboratory conditions. The silver fox is a melanistic form of the wild red fox. Domesticated silver foxes are the result of an experiment designed to demonstrate the power of selective breeding to transform species, as described by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species. The experiment at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia explored whether selection for behaviour rather than morphology may have been the process that had produced dogs from wolves, by recording the changes in foxes when in each generation only the most tame foxes were allowed to breed. Many of the descendant foxes became both tamer and more dog-like in morphology, including displaying mottled- or spotted-coloured fur.
The domestication of vertebrates is the mutual relationship between vertebrate animals including birds and mammals, and the humans who have influence on their care and reproduction.
A working animal is an animal, usually domesticated, that is kept by humans and trained to perform tasks instead of being slaughtered to harvest animal products. Some are used for their physical strength or for transportation, while others are service animals trained to execute certain specialized tasks. They may also be used for milking or herding. Some, at the end of their working lives, may also be used for meat or leather.
The Pampas deer is a species of deer that live in the grasslands of South America at low elevations. They are known as veado-campeiro in Portuguese and as venado or gama in Spanish. It is the only species in the genus Ozotoceros.
A semi-feral animal lives predominantly in a feral state but has some contact and experience with humans. This may be because it was born in a domesticated state and then reverted to life in wild conditions, or it may be an animal that grew up in essentially wild conditions but has developed a comfort level with humans through feeding, receiving medical care, or similar contacts.
Fur is a thick growth of hair that covers the skin of almost all mammals. It consists of a combination of oily guard hair on top and thick underfur beneath. The guard hair keeps moisture from reaching the skin; the underfur acts as an insulating blanket that keeps the animal warm.
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to abstract concepts such as nations, emotions, and natural forces, such as seasons and weather. Both have ancient roots as storytelling and artistic devices, and most cultures have traditional fables with anthropomorphized animals as characters. People have also routinely attributed human emotions and behavioral traits to wild as well as domesticated animals.
Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting in order to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals who are raised for consumption, and sometimes used to refer solely to farmed ruminants, such as cattle, sheep, and goats. Horses are considered livestock in the United States. The USDA classifies pork, veal, beef, and lamb (mutton) as livestock, and all livestock as red meat. Poultry and fish are not included in the category. The latter is likely due to the fact that fish products are not governed by the USDA, but by the FDA.
Cattle are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus Bos. Mature female cattle are called cows and mature male cattle are bulls. Young female cattle are called heifers, young male cattle are oxen or bullocks, and castrated male cattle are known as steers.
Human uses of animals include both practical uses, such as the production of food and clothing, and symbolic uses, such as in art, literature, mythology, and religion. All of these are elements of culture, broadly understood. Animals used in these ways include fish, crustaceans, insects, molluscs, mammals and birds.
Human uses of living things, including animals plants, fungi, and microbes, take many forms, both practical, such as the production of food and clothing, and symbolic, as in art, mythology, and religion. The skills and practices involved are transmitted by human culture through social learning. Social sciences including archaeology, anthropology and ethnography are starting to take a multispecies view of human interactions with nature, in which living things are not just resources to be exploited, practically or symbolically, but are involved as participants.
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