Top ten favourite animals overall.

[Deleted]

wermthewerm

[wermthewerm]

Hard to say, to be honest.

I don't really have a favorite animal, but a top 10 in no particular order would probably be

1. Moose
2. Brown Bears
3. Domestic Cats
4. White-Tailed Deer
5. Tigers
6. Bison in general
7. Cougars
8. Jaguars
9. Hippoes
10. Polar Bears

[Hardcastle]

Dec 28, 2022 13:50:58 GMT Hardcastle said:

1. Boarhound (aka Bull Lurchers, option of additional ingredients but should be 25% or below of final dog's make up which should be mostly bull/sighthound- I can't deny these are my number 1 passion)
2. Red Deer
3. European Brown Hare
4. Bateleur Eagle
5. Brown Goshawk
6. Murray Cod
7. Stubble Quail
8. Staghound (aka long dog - most often greyhound x deerhound, sometimes grey x deer/wolf, possible small dash of something else. A working hunting sighthound for a variety of game)
9. Axis Deer
10. Queensland Lungfish

I want to now do a more generalised one-

1. Gripping dogs
   
2. Eurasian cervids
3. Ray finned fish (that's most fish, in fact 50% of living vertebrate species on earth, it's just easier to say because I like so many fish. "Stars" include - Groupers, Cod, Trout, Tuna, Perch, Killifish, Knife fish, Loaches - frustratingly excludes lungfish which I love)
4. Hares and Jackrabbits
5. Accipitridae BOPs (eagles, buzzards, hawks, etc)
6. Galliformes (landfowl)
7. Bovines, tapirs, suids (I'm aware this is cheating and makes no sense)
8. Freshwater crustaceans and molluscs
9. Frogs, newts and salamanders
10. Sighthounds
11. Baboons and Drills

^I feel this is a better insight into my real ranking of favourite animals. Though even now so many more are coming to mind... 

[lincoln]

I will honestly need to think about this, cheetah is my #1, always has been. I will need to think about my whole list, there are so many I like to choose from

[Deleted]

Jan 21, 2023 23:19:39 GMT lincoln said:

I will honestly need to think about this, cheetah is my #1, always has been. I will need to think about my whole list, there are so many I like to choose from

Dogs or cheetahs? 

[lincoln]

Jan 21, 2023 23:20:10 GMT Bolushi said:

Jan 21, 2023 23:19:39 GMT lincoln said:

I will honestly need to think about this, cheetah is my #1, always has been. I will need to think about my whole list, there are so many I like to choose from

Dogs or cheetahs? 

I honestly have them in separate categories, when people talk about favorite animals, they usually mean wild ones. 

[Hardcastle]

Jan 21, 2023 23:21:48 GMT lincoln said:

Jan 21, 2023 23:20:10 GMT Bolushi said:

Dogs or cheetahs? 

I honestly have them in separate categories, when people talk about favorite animals, they usually mean wild ones. 

Slowly I'd like to teach you guys to change your perspective on this.
I understand it, I thought that way for 23 years or so, everyone does, but everyone is wrong.

[Deleted]

Jan 21, 2023 23:24:38 GMT Hardcastle said:

Jan 21, 2023 23:21:48 GMT lincoln said:

I honestly have them in separate categories, when people talk about favorite animals, they usually mean wild ones. 

Slowly I'd like to teach you guys to change your perspective on this.
I understand it, I thought that way for 23 years or so, everyone does, but everyone is wrong.

Now you've got me intrigued on the nature of this perspective change...

[Hardcastle]

I've touched on it many times, but in a nutshell humans are animals, and dogs are animals. "Pet dogs" are nonsense that can be disregarded the same way pet tigers and pet alligators can be disregarded. That's not what dogs are. Dogs are various animals, filling various niches connected to human social units.

The first and primary dog is the pariah dog. It has evolved to be tolerated by humans and scavenge their scraps. In this way there is zero fundamental difference between a pariah dog and a remora on a shark. Is the remora "not a wild animal"? Of course it is.



Is an oxpecker not a wild animal?



There's really no logic behind acting like a pariah dog isn't a natural normal wild animal. It just found a niche that happened to be connected to another species. That happens all the time. A predator/prey relationship, even, is fundamentally the same. A cheetah is dependant on the thomsen's gazelle and has been shaped by the thomsen's gazelle and it's dependance on it. It has adapted to the thomsen's gazelle, and the thomsen's gazelle has adapted to it. Likewise, dogs adapted to us. And we them. Not in a predator/prey relationship, in this instance, instead a symbiotic partnership. But that's actually a small detail.

Once they formed an instrinsic symbiotic connection to us, and we combined our social units into one, then another secondary phenomenon occurred. That is evolving for a specialised role within the social unit. This is again a totally natural normal thing that occurs among wild animals.

Are the various role players in ant colonies not wild animals?





Are male lions not wild animals?



Once there is a social unit, of any kind, the social unit is the "entity" and the individuals are just cogs in that machine. They don't need to be "independent" or prove that they can live without the colony to be viable valid wild animals. That's totally irrelevant. Nothing can live without the animals it has adapted to rely upon, one way or another.

When you understand humans are just apes, and that we have colonies like ants, and specialised role players in those colonies... we're all natural wild animals and need not be excluded from wild animal discussions and investigations.

Including the vast variety of dogs. Now the "pet" world of dogs are taking the piss and are abominations. But the valid functional "types" are all valid animals. They have a niche they're adapted to perform within a natural social unit of wild animals. One that's insanely OP, and destroying the world, but again these are side details.