This Is What Animals Looked Like Before We Domesticated Them

6 years ago
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Over time, humans have domesticated various animals to better suit our needs. Everything from dogs to pigs to chickens were bred to serve as companions or to feed an entire family for dinner.
If we look at the history of domestication, goats were most likely the first animals to be domesticated in ancient Mesopotamia. Sheep and chickens came next, followed by larger animals like oxen and horses, which were used for hard labor like plowing.

When you take a bite of steak or munch on a turkey drumstick, you probably don't think about the animal it came from. We've been eating animals for millennia, but generations of breeding have given rise to farm animals that look pretty different from their wild ancestors. The way some animals look today is very different to the way they looked before people started selectively breeding them. From turkeys and chickens to cows and sheep, the video shows some of the most common animals we eat looked in the past versus today.

Over many generations, humans have domesticated wild animals in the same way we created dogs out of wolves. We have selectively bred some ship that are so fluffy. They could overheat and die without a haircut, chickens that are so large they can feed an entire family and cows so udderly huge that can feed an entire village. We have created big pink pigs that make bacon possible, and of course, (slightly) less ferocious cats that can break the Internet.

Which animals might we domesticate next?

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