Notice: This is the official website of the All Empires History Community (Reg. 10 Feb 2002)

  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Register Register  Login Login

History of animals

 Post Reply Post Reply Page  123 7>
Author
omshanti View Drop Down
Baron
Baron
Avatar

Joined: 02-Nov-2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 429
  Quote omshanti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: History of animals
    Posted: 13-Nov-2006 at 20:14

I am not sure if this (general history ) is the right place to post this topic. I thought of posting it in the tavern or the intellectual discussions first but  changed my mind because I thought animals  need to be considered a  part of  the history as seriously as humans  even though they do not have the ability to make or manipulate history like humans. They have been used , mistreated , hunted , driven to extinction and massacred by humans throughout the history. They have survived on earth which has been under the rule of humanity for thousands of years and which is increasingly becoming  over-populated by humans and uncomfortable for animals. Maybe it is time for us humans to stop being so selfish and self- centered and devote a thread to the history of animals .We share the planet with them. Maybe by learning to respect animals, we can also learn to respect other people who are our  fellow human-beings. At least we can forget in this thread about all those nationalistic views so popular in the All-empires forum, because nobody can claim a horse or a  cat or a dog to be  Turkic  or Indian or Chinese or Aryan or African or American etc... So please share anything you know regarding the histiory of animals. It does not matter weather it is related to humans or not, just any thing about animals.

Those below are the few things I know from here and there.  
 
Lions lived in the middle east and Europe untill the 3rd century AD. The European lions are thought to have been a little bigger in size than the African lions and were extinct largely because of the huntings of the Roman empire. As you know Romans used lions for amusement and made them fight with gladiators.
 
Tigers lived in a much larger area than they do now (India ,Southeast-asia). They lived  all the way to  the middle east and Caucasus untill the 18th -19th century AD.
 
Horses are thought to have originally evolved in the American continent  and later spread across the world while extinct in their homeland the Americas. When the Spanish took horses to the Americas  from Europe in  the 15th century AD , they were in fact reintroducing horses to their homeland.
 
Italian grey-hounds are a type of dog originating in Anatolia but were very popular as pets during the Renaissance  time in Italy.


Edited by omshanti - 13-Nov-2006 at 23:41
Back to Top
Paul View Drop Down
General
General
Avatar
AE Immoderator

Joined: 21-Aug-2004
Location: Hyperborea
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 952
  Quote Paul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Nov-2006 at 20:26
The one I always like is the Northern European Rhino, which was hunted to exstinction by pre-historic peoples.
 
Also the Moa in New Zealand, a bird which was 4 metres tall and only went extinct 400 year ago, thanks to the Maouri.
Light blue touch paper and stand well back

http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk

http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk
Back to Top
Eondt View Drop Down
Earl
Earl
Avatar

Joined: 23-Aug-2006
Location: South Africa
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 279
  Quote Eondt Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 04:03
The wolf was once one of the most wide-spread and successful predators on the planet, until almost driven to extinction by man.
Back to Top
Knights View Drop Down
Caliph
Caliph
Avatar
suspended

Joined: 23-Oct-2006
Location: AUSTRALIA
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3224
  Quote Knights Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 04:50
There were supposedly a species of Hippopotamus living in the Thames River and around London in ancient times, however sources regarding this are not 100% credilbe. Note to self: Look further into this
Great Topic; This is my real passion - animals - so I look forward to having good discussion, sharing some knowledge and learning new information!
- Knights -
Back to Top
gcle2003 View Drop Down
King
King

Suspended

Joined: 06-Dec-2004
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 7035
  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 04:55
Originally posted by Paul

The one I always like is the Northern European Rhino, which was hunted to exstinction by pre-historic peoples.
 
Also the Moa in New Zealand, a bird which was 4 metres tall and only went extinct 400 year ago, thanks to the Maouri.
 
And gave birth to an unbearable family of puns, which I decline to perpetuate. Approve
 
The history of the racehorse is well-documented and interesting. For starters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoroughbred
 
And of course the racehorse is the only animal other than a human to have been a Roman Senator.  


Edited by gcle2003 - 14-Nov-2006 at 05:02
Back to Top
Knights View Drop Down
Caliph
Caliph
Avatar
suspended

Joined: 23-Oct-2006
Location: AUSTRALIA
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3224
  Quote Knights Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 05:26
As we know, many large mammals became extinct due to human recreation/hunting, sprawl and various other natural/unnatural processes.
Some of the most noted examples were featured in the Roman Arenas:

>>European Lion (Panthera leo europaea) - Distributed in Southern Europe from the Iberia through to Liguria, Southern (Cisalpine) Gaul, as well as the Italian Peninsula. The full extent of it's range spread through the Balkans, into Greece and Macedonia, and Thrace. The European Lion was a significant part of Roman, Greek, Macedonian and Balkan Culture and Religion because of the power and majesty it symbolised. However, as a part of sport and hunting, the European Lion gradually diminished and became extinct around 1000AD. It was also used in Roman Gladiatorial arenas. There are numerous accounts of these beasts, including those by Herodotus and Aristotle.

http://arthist.cla.umn.edu/aict/images/ancient/aneast/512/71.jpg
>>Caspian Tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) - This was the species of Tiger primarily used in Roman Arenas. It would fight other animals such as lions and aurochs (see below).  They inhabited the area stretching from the most easterly border of the Roman Empire; Mesopotamia, Iran, Afghanistan and into China at its extent. It was hunted and exploited for human purposes extensively in ancient times, but survived to the Modern Age. The Soviets ran an eradication program to eliminate the already dramatically depleted population of Caspian Tiger's in Northern Afghanisatan/Southern Russia. It proved successful and it is believed the subspecies died out around the 1960's - however no exact date is agreed upon.
http://topofart.com/images/works/114/images/4.jpg
>>Aurochs (Bos primegenius) - The aurochs is a commonly unheard of ungulate (hoofed mammal) which was another of the animals commonly used by Romans for entertainment in the gladiatorial arenas. However, it is a very wide-spread figure used in the ancient world. They are believed to have originated in India, but migrated to the Middle East. The Aurochs spread over most of mainland Europe; into Scandanavia, Bohemia, France, The Balkans, and out towards Italy and Iberia. It also inhabited Mesopotamia, Asia Minor and the Middle East. The Aurochs was pitted against Big Cats such as the Lion or Tiger in the arenas, and it is also believed that this activity stemmed into modern day bull fighting (questionable). The aurochs was a mighty and formidable type of cattle and was domesticated for farming and agricultural purposes. The right to hunt large animals on any land was restricted to nobles and gradually to the royal household. As the population of aurochs declined, hunting ceased but the royal court still required gamekeepers to provide open fields for the aurochs to graze in. The gamekeepers were exempted from local taxes in exchange for their service and a decree made poaching aurochs punishable by death. They last fully purebred/wild one died in 1627 in Poland. The domesticated Aurochs was hybridized and interbred with other cattle at a point before the decline of this great creature, to eventuate into a modern-day subspecies of cattle.
It is nice to know that we have the genealogical descendants of fierce lion slaughtering 'cows' as domestic animals today Smile
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/images/v14/i2/Aurochs.jpg

*more to come*

- Knights -




Edited by Knights - 14-Nov-2006 at 06:18
Back to Top
Knights View Drop Down
Caliph
Caliph
Avatar
suspended

Joined: 23-Oct-2006
Location: AUSTRALIA
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3224
  Quote Knights Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 05:28
Originally posted by gcle2003

 
And of course the racehorse is the only animal other than a human to have been a Roman Senator.  


LOL heheh
Caligula, funny guy. Was the horses name Ignatius? Not sure but what an honour - FOR A HORSE
Tongue


Edited by Knights - 14-Nov-2006 at 05:29
Back to Top
omshanti View Drop Down
Baron
Baron
Avatar

Joined: 02-Nov-2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 429
  Quote omshanti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 07:58
Wow Knights!  Thank you so much for your great posts! I love animals so much too , but  You seem to know about animals and their history so  much more than me. Please keep them coming
 
This might not be  ancient history because it only started few years ago and it is still going on . I call it the holocaust of the crows. In Japan, the city of Tokyo put out this plan a few years ago in order to get rid of the crows who eat the rubbish in the city before it is  collected. The plan was to capture 5000 crows every year and exterminate them. Can you believe how they kill them?  They put the captured crows in gas chambers. If you go to any park in Tokyo you will see huge trapping cages under the trees. When you ask  people about it in Japan , they all say that it is a necessary thing that the city is doing and nobody cares about it. . From the crow s point of view Japan is a nazi country.
 
Talking of big cows, When the Europeans went to the Americas apparently there were 6 million ( please correct me if I am wrong with the numbers )bison in north America. They were very important animals to the native-American peoples and only because of this reason , were massacred  by the Europeans. Although they escaped extinction, today very small numbers of them survive in Canada.
 
What is the story of Caligula and Ignatius? it sounds very interesting .  Also were there any more well-known individual animals in the history?


Edited by omshanti - 14-Nov-2006 at 08:15
Back to Top
gcle2003 View Drop Down
King
King

Suspended

Joined: 06-Dec-2004
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 7035
  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 08:35
Caligula's horse's name was Incitatus and Suetonius reports a story that Caligula was thinking about making him a senator. Sadly I suspect he never was one.
 
There have however been a number of US Senators (and British MPs - fair's fair) who remind one of a certain part of a horse's anatomy.
 
The glaring modern example of deliberate near-extinction of a species is the introduction of myxomatosis to control rabbits. As a (partly) accidental result of this, 95% of the rabbits in the UK were killed off and what had been a staple food for countryfolk and the poor became an expensive luxury.
 
It didn't become a commonplace food again until rabbit meat started being imported from China in the '70s.
 
 
Back to Top
Styrbiorn View Drop Down
Caliph
Caliph


Joined: 04-Aug-2004
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2810
  Quote Styrbiorn Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 08:35
Originally posted by omshanti

Talking of big cows, When the Europeans went to the Americas apparently there were 6 million ( please correct me if I am wrong with the numbers )bison in north America. They were very important animals to the native-American peoples and only because of this reason , were massacred  by the Europeans. Although they escaped extinction, today very small numbers of them survive in Canada.

They weren't massacred until the latter half of the 1800s when the American railroad companies started issuing the big money. You can hardly blame the Europeans for that...





What about a positive story instead?

The musk ox, despite its name and appearance more closely related to goats than to oxen, is a up to half a ton heavy furry animal who lives in cold climates. The last of the large ancient animals, who lived alongside mammuths and sabre-toothed cats. They were native to all the Arctic regions, though in the early 1900s they had disappeared from all but Canada and Greenland. Even there they were threatened to extinction, being very easy to hunt since their defence against predators is to form a circle around the calves - effective against wolves (and maybe once against the sabre-toothed cats) but hardly against guns. However they were protected, and today around 50,000 animals remain, mostly on greenland and the Arctic islands of Canada. In the mid 1900s they were reintroduced into Norway and Russia. From Norway a group of animals left the herd and migrated to Sweden in 1971, where they roam around the sparsely populated areas. The latter group figures on the pictures below:





Back to Top
jacobtowne View Drop Down
Samurai
Samurai


Joined: 24-Sep-2006
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 102
  Quote jacobtowne Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 11:13
"Talking of big cows, When the Europeans went to the Americas apparently there were 6 million ( please correct me if I am wrong with the numbers )bison in north America. They were very important animals to the native-American peoples and only because of this reason , were massacred  by the Europeans. Although they escaped extinction, today very small numbers of them survive in Canada."

The positive side to this story is that the species was saved, and there are now herds of buffalo in the U.S. One can even buy buffalo meat in some specialty markets, although I suspect it's pricey.

JT

Back to Top
Ikki View Drop Down
Chieftain
Chieftain
Avatar
Guanarteme

Joined: 31-Dec-2004
Location: Spain
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1378
  Quote Ikki Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 12:04
Iberian Peninsula have a curious history of animals, during times dominated african ones: cocrodiles, hyppopotamus, lions... Others northern: wolfs, mamuts, woolly rhinoceros... And times where both types was mixed. Like in all Europe, the arrival of the Holocene and the rise of the Homo Sapiens finished the megafauna: mamuts, rhinoceros, cave bears, all they dissapeared. And the lion, i have never heard about lions in Iberia after the 10.000, i don't know why recently many pages about lions include Iberia as a place where the european lions lived during roman times.
Back to Top
Adalwolf View Drop Down
Chieftain
Chieftain
Avatar

Joined: 08-Sep-2006
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1230
  Quote Adalwolf Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 12:14
Originally posted by jacobtowne

"Talking of big cows, When the Europeans went to the Americas apparently there were 6 million ( please correct me if I am wrong with the numbers )bison in north America. They were very important animals to the native-American peoples and only because of this reason , were massacred  by the Europeans. Although they escaped extinction, today very small numbers of them survive in Canada."

The positive side to this story is that the species was saved, and there are now herds of buffalo in the U.S. One can even buy buffalo meat in some specialty markets, although I suspect it's pricey.

JT



Have you ever tried a buffalo burger? Its a hamburger with buffalo meat instead of cow meat, and they taste soooooo good! I want to try to find buffalo steak. I bet it tastes amazing...
Back to Top
jacobtowne View Drop Down
Samurai
Samurai


Joined: 24-Sep-2006
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 102
  Quote jacobtowne Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 12:20
Originally posted by Adalwolf


Have you ever tried a buffalo burger? Its a hamburger with buffalo meat instead of cow meat, and they taste soooooo good! I want to try to find buffalo steak. I bet it tastes amazing...


No, I've never eaten buffalo. I've tried mooseburgers and caribou steaks, and we have venision from white-tailed deer once in a while.

JT

Back to Top
Knights View Drop Down
Caliph
Caliph
Avatar
suspended

Joined: 23-Oct-2006
Location: AUSTRALIA
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3224
  Quote Knights Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 14:38
Well considering one of my favourite animals would have to be the Peregrine Falcon, I thought I'd include some trivia regarding these magnificent Aves.

- In 1530 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500 - 1558) donated the island of Malta to the Knights Hospitaller. The annual rent which he requested was 'Peregrine Falcons', known commonly as the Maltses Falcon (see below)  in this case Smile
http://static.flickr.com/53/159705335_c2cd5f17f1_m.jpg
- One of my personal favourite historical figures in relation to animals is Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194 - 1250). He had a common love for animals in general, but was passionate about falconry in particular. There are accounts that on receiving a letter from the Mongol Khan - in which Frederick was invited to 'surrender' - he replied saying that he would only do so if he was appointed head falconer. Frederick also had a flamboyant array of animals that he kept in a mobile zoo. These included exotics from all around the known world. For example; Lynxes, Leopards, Caspian Tigers, Exotic Birds, Giraffes, Cheetahs, Zebra and numerous species of Dog/Wolf. The most prized of falcons in that day were the Gyrfalcons (see below), who personified majesty and grandeur, with their luscious white seasonal colour. Frederick requested these regal falcons from as far away as Greenland, but mainly got his from Scandanavia (seeing as they rarely live below the arctic circle. Cool

http://images.enature.com/birds/birds_m/BD0598_1m.jpghttp://www.mbgnet.net/sets/tundra/animals/gyr.jpg

*Any further information regarding Falconary - I'd imagine there's a lot! - in History, please share!* Big smile

More to come...

- Knights -


Edited by Knights - 01-Jan-2007 at 07:28
Back to Top
Guests View Drop Down
Guest
Guest
  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 15:13

I love animals, too. And I hope we could save in my country some species like the Condor, Guanaco and the marvelous Pudu.

However, one thing is clear for me. Savage animals get extincted because a simple fact: they requere a large space to survive. That makes competition with humans for space a big problem.
 
And it is true that the problems for animals started very early. In the Americas there was a mass extinction after the entrance of humans beings through the strait of berings. Mastodons, Milodons, the giant armadillo, and the American horse, and that megafauna coexisted with man a couple of thousand years and afterwards become extinguished.
 
Imagine if the American horse had survived and become domesticated. Perhaps history would have been different.
 
Now, the problems are going on in a planetary scale. It is possible we start to extinguish fish now. What else will follow, I don't know.
 
In the other hand, in the case of dangerous animals, like poisonous serpents, the mortal spiders or the white sharks, I really wonder if it is practical to let them survive just because ecology, but anyways.
 
Pinguin
 
Back to Top
Adalwolf View Drop Down
Chieftain
Chieftain
Avatar

Joined: 08-Sep-2006
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1230
  Quote Adalwolf Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 15:41
Originally posted by pinguin

 
In the other hand, in the case of dangerous animals, like poisonous serpents, the mortal spiders or the white sharks, I really wonder if it is practical to let them survive just because ecology, but anyways.
 
Pinguin
 


Of couse they should be allowed to survive! Animals usually only attack when people are being stupid and agitate them!

Also, if all the 'dangerous' predators are killed, then there will be a giant gap in the environment, which is never good. Take for example the deer population in some parts of the US. It is exploding do to lack of natural predators. Thousands are hit by cars every year, causing lots of damage to the car, and sometimes the people. If natural predators were allowed to survive the deer population would be kept in check, resulting in less car accidents.

Furthermore, just because something can inflict harm does not mean it will. Peole just need to be careful out in the wild and not act stupidly.
Back to Top
Guests View Drop Down
Guest
Guest
  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 16:17
Well, a teenage girl just died in my country because a domestic spider, (called the "spider of the corners" Loxosceles laeta) which is endemic in my country, bite her. That spider is such a dangerous criature that can kill anyone just at the first bite. Some people has lost limbs as well, or it has gangrenate the face of the victim.
 
If I got the way to do it, I would make sure that criature dissapear from the creation, together with the pitbull and the mouse that carry the Hanta virus. Yes sir.
 
Pinguin
Back to Top
Hellios View Drop Down
Arch Duke
Arch Duke
Avatar

Joined: 25-Sep-2006
Location: Canada
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1933
  Quote Hellios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 19:15
It's fascinating to study and think about some extinct species, like the ones mentioned in this thread, the dinosaurs, etc.
 
What do you fellas think about these radical new projects of reviving certain recently extinct species of small animals through genetic engineering?
 
I'm too lazy to dig up the specific details right now, but I can remember at least 2 such projects.
 
Ok wait, gimme a few minutes to dig up the details, because I hate mentioning stuff without sources, wait...Smile
 


Edited by Hellios - 14-Nov-2006 at 19:27
Back to Top
Hellios View Drop Down
Arch Duke
Arch Duke
Avatar

Joined: 25-Sep-2006
Location: Canada
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1933
  Quote Hellios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 19:23
Ok, found this, but didn't do any background check on the author (Sydney Horton) so this is for amusement only:
 
Scientists are also working to clone several endangered species--though, of course, cloning is no substitute for habitat preservation--and analyzing ancient DNA to better understand evolution. Here's a roundup of some recent projects.

Gaur


Status: Extremely rare, but no recent population figures; inhabits India and Southeast Asia


Born on January 8, 2001, a gaur named Noah was the first clone of an endangered animal. American scientists created the baby gaur, a species of wild ox, by implanting DNA from the frozen tissue of a deceased male gaur into the eggs of a common cow from which the genetic material had been removed. The cow, acting as a surrogate mother, brought the gaur to term. However, within 48 hours Noah died of dysentery, which scientists say was unrelated to cloning.


Asiatic Cheetah


Status: Fewer than 60 remain, in Iran


Indian scientists plan to reintroduce the cheetah to the Indian subcontinent by means of a clone. The donor DNA will be taken from a captive cheetah and implanted into the eggs of a leopard that have been stripped of genetic material. The leopard will carry the mixed embryo to term. A live birth is hoped for within a few years.


Giant Panda


Status: About 1,000 remain, in southwestern China


Because the panda is a notoriously reluctant breeder in captivity, American biologists are considering cloning preserved cells from Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling, two pandas that died in the 1990s at the National Zoo, in Washington, D.C. Black bears would serve as surrogate moms for the born-again pandas.


Pyrenean Ibex (Bucardo)


Status: Extinct, in 2000


The last known member of this Spanish goat subspecies was killed by a falling tree on January 6, 2000. Just months before its demise, Spanish scientists had captured the animal and taken tissue from its ears with an eye toward preserving the species; it is expected to yield DNA that is good enough for cloning.


Moa


Status: Extinct, circa 1500


In 2001 two species of this giant flightless New Zealand bird (of which there were 11 species in all) became the first extinct animals to have their mitochondrial genome sequenced. This achievement by Oxford scientists is critical to the understanding of the evolution, age, and distribution of some modern orders of birds, as well as the effect the moa had on the evolution of New Zealand's plants.


Woolly Mammoth


Status: Extinct on the continents circa 8000 b.c. (2000 b.c. for a small population on Wrangel Island, off Siberia)


When a frozen woolly mammoth was discovered on the steppes of Russia in 1997, it was thought to be more or less intact, and much hullabaloo ensued over resurrecting the species through cloning. But the ancient pachyderm's genetic code turned out to be badly damaged, a jumble of pieces hundreds of times smaller than the DNA used in the Human Genome Project.


--Sydney Horton

 


Edited by Hellios - 14-Nov-2006 at 19:37
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply Page  123 7>

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down

Bulletin Board Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 9.56a [Free Express Edition]
Copyright ©2001-2009 Web Wiz

This page was generated in 0.109 seconds.