• X@piefed.world
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    2 hours ago

    “Motherfucker, do you see the way I look?! Shit ain’t for the insta, that’s for sure. I’m quite visible to you so you have a long enough time to be getting far the fuck away from me.”

    • underisk@lemmy.ml
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      24 minutes ago

      I thought the stripes were actually camouflage and they’re just monochromatic because the things they’re hiding from have poor color vision.

      • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        12 minutes ago

        The truth is we don’t actually know because the zebras don’t want us to:

        So, the question why zebras have stripes have proven very difficult and not without risks – Stephen Cobb has been bitten in the arm and admitted to hospital twice. Despite the extra vigour of recent work, the answer remains inconclusive.

      • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
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        8 minutes ago

        Latest theory I heard was:

        A 2014 study found a correlation between striping and overlap with horse and tsetse fly populations and activity. Other studies have found that zebras are rarely targeted by these insect species. Caro and colleagues (2019) studied captive zebras and horses and observed that neither could deter flies from a distance, but zebra stripes kept flies from landing, both on zebras and horses dressed in zebra print coats. […] White or light stripes painted on dark bodies have also been found to reduce fly irritations in both cattle and humans.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra

  • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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    2 hours ago

    In the 1980s, in Tijuana, tourist kids could ride horses painted like zebras.

  • BigBenis@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    The Cow says: Moo!

    The Horse says: Neigh!

    The Zebra says: I ain’t nobody’s bitch!

  • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
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    5 hours ago

    What distinguishes zebras from horses is that zebras live in anonymous herds. That is, they like to clump together to ward off predators, but they don’t know or like each other. They are not a uniform group with a leader. Horses on the other hand do have authorities and followers among them. And humans can hijack the role of the leader.

    CGPGrey: The Real Reason We Don’t Ride Zebras (6:23)

    • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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      5 hours ago

      zebras live in anonymous herds. That is, they like to clump together to ward off predators, but they don’t know or like each other.

      Zebra’s don’t like anyone, and they’re not afraid to show it. Repeatedly.

    • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      What distinguishes zebras from horses is that zebras live in anonymous herds.

      says a lot about 4chan, the penny arcade GIFT theory, etc

      • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        With how Facebook forces real names, the idea that being anonymous has any influence where or not someone is a fuckwad had been debunked.

        • AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social
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          2 hours ago

          It’s not the anonimity that makes people fuckwads. It’s the lack of immediate consequences. A fuckwad won’t get a punch in the face for what they say on facebook, hence they feel they can say anything and be a fuckwad.

          • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            “Social media made y’all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it”, Mike Tyson

            Regardless of how you feel about Tyson, Truth is Truth.

        • tempest@lemmy.ca
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          1 hour ago

          In a large enough group there is still anonymity even if your face and name are on there.

    • stenAanden@feddit.dk
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      4 hours ago

      This makes me wonder… How much of what he says is just conjecture? Do we ACTUALLY know with good certainty that zebras can’t be domesticated due to their nature? Or is it just a hypothesis/theory that has reached widespread popularity?

      I have heard that zebras (along with other African animals) can’t be domesticated because they have evolved to live among humans, when we were still man-apes. But that maybe that’s just conjecture too.

      Note how he have no sources in his video or description. And his comparison to chickens, cows, sheep and cats don’t seem to make much sense. The relation between humans and chickens/cows/sheep is markedly different from that of horses. Do wild fowl really have family structures? Cats don’t yet they are still docile among humans.

      • LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
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        21 minutes ago

        I saw a historic photo in a magazine once, where some European colonial officers tried to tame and ride zebras

        • stenAanden@feddit.dk
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          4 hours ago

          But what if we spent longer time doing it? Like centuries, like with most other domesticated animals.

          • HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            1 hour ago

            Domesticated animals generally start out already being somewhat agreeable. Like dogs hung around us, and work in a pack mentality, horses same thing, cats same thing. That’s why we could domesticate racoons or some rodents if we wanted to.

            Zebras are assholes and hate everyone

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
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          40 minutes ago

          That could have potentially been bred out for domesticated strains like we did with horses also, but we never even got to that point because horse hierarchy and zebra hierarchy are very different beasts, and you can’t really tame a zebra matriarch and have the rest of the herd fall into line, because zebras don’t have that kind of matriarchal social system. They are so mistrustful and hard to approach that we were never even able to get to square one.

  • stenAanden@feddit.dk
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    4 hours ago

    I honestly wonder if we actually COULD domesticate zebras but it would taking centuries or millennia. Just like other domesticated species.

    • oatscoop@midwest.social
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      28 minutes ago

      Selective breeding is no different than natural evolution in how drastically it can change an organism given enough time and the right selections for “fitness”.

      So you could produce a domesticated, tame zebra – but waiting on and favoring the right mutations would take a very long time and be prohibitively expensive. It’s possible, but not realistically feasible.

    • Chais@sh.itjust.works
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      3 hours ago

      No. Zebras don’t have a herd hierarchy we can exploit. With horses you pick out the lead horse, tame it and boom, the whole herd follows you.
      With zebras you get one zebra, of you’re very lucky. More likely you’ll get kicked and bitten.

    • SPRUNT@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Spoken like someone who knows nothing about zebras. They’re not striped because of camouflage; that’s their prison uniform, and they are all violent offenders.

      • Denjin@feddit.uk
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        5 hours ago

        There’s not many animals that haven’t been domesticated because they’re cunts. And zebras are one.

        • nesc@lemmy.cafe
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          5 hours ago

          Cats on the other hand are domesticated despite being cunts and we absolutely adore them.

            • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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              2 hours ago

              They kept rats out of our food storage and we viewed it as adequate enough to not kick them out.

          • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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            4 hours ago

            Oh, no. As the scientists of the Smithsonian put it,
            “scientists think the house cat is only domestic when it wants to be”

          • limer@lemmy.ml
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            3 hours ago

            We only adore cats because of the parasites controlling our minds.

            There is a distinct correlation between cats taking over homes and the spread of that thing

            • angrystego@lemmy.world
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              2 hours ago

              I’ve been tested - don’t have it, and I love cats. Part of the cat magic is they’re not really cunts and many people can see it. Also, the parasite doesn’t need you to love cats, it just needs you to not run away from them and to go get eaten by them. If you have a paper showing the correlation, I’d be really interested though - I have a soft spot for this topic, because I got close to a research group focused on it at the uni.

              • limer@lemmy.ml
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                53 seconds ago

                Honestly I was only being snarky. There is definitely more parasites the more cats there are, but probably are not responsible for me finding then cute

          • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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            3 hours ago

            I bet house cats would never have been a thing if they didn’t house-train (bury their feces) instinctually.

            • nesc@lemmy.cafe
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              3 hours ago

              They are extremely useful and adorable. I think it’s the violence that makes them so magical, like they are extremely cute cold blooded killing machines.

              • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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                3 hours ago

                The usefulness is dubious for most house cats. Most households don’t have mouse infestations, and cats who go outside actively endanger wildlife (and yes, that is an issue for humans as well).

                I do agree that they’re extremely cute, probably very useful on a psychological level, and honestly I don’t know any other cute pet animals that are as cleanly with their feces (dogs can relatively easily be trained to not shit on the carpet, but not to shit in a dog toilet).

                • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
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                  58 minutes ago

                  The usefulness is dubious for most house cats. Most households don’t have mouse infestations, and cats who go outside actively endanger wildlife (and yes, that is an issue for humans as well).

                  I’d say our cats are useful. These are their stats:

                  Number of birds killed by cats in my household over the last 5 years: 1
                  Number of birds killed by going full speed, beak first, into a closed window, then tried being passed off as a successful prey: 2 Number of mice killed: +500
                  Other wildlife known to have been affected: 1 mole

                  Can other wildlife have been affected? Possibly, but we’re confident with regards to birds. And the only other weve seen cats go for are mice. Not even rats, I guess they’re too big.

                • nesc@lemmy.cafe
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                  3 hours ago

                  Most households where? Even in rich modern nations mouses and rodents were a problem very recently. Like in the lifespan of some users on this network.

      • Eddyzh@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Hm it’s not a fake picture apparently but the situation is definitely not as implied.

        Thanks for sharing!

        • pageflight@piefed.social
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          4 hours ago

          Did expect: self defense. Did not expect: eventually the croc wins, also all the other zebras just walking by.

      • redbrick@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        crocs are damn scary. They once ripped off an oar from our boat…freaking scary ass moment. Dad chased it off with the other oar. If Jurassic Park were real, crocs are a glimpse of that.