domesticated wattlebird?

["Philip Veerman" <>]

Responding to David's comment, although it probably hardly matters. A standard dictionary might be adequate for everyday use in a simplistic sense or for example applied to the behaviour of people, a species to which one would think the dictionary is mainly directed. I point out, it is not a dictionary of biology and so surely the inadequacy of that definition is unhelpful. There is a big biological difference between the processes of domestication and taming, even if some end points appear similar. Domestication is something that happens over many generations of selection, such as the process applying to cats, dogs, cattle, roses, wheat, corn, etc. There are indeed only very few cases of domestication. It leads to genetic change. Whereas the process of taming, which for example you can do within the lifetime of an individual animal, applies to that individual without the population being domesticated and does not lead to genetic change. Then there is the other aspect that looks similar as shown by many animals that live on islands. Animals that due to absence of predators, so having little to gain from being fearful, through a process over many generations, have lost the inheritance of fear of other things. These are neither domestic or tame, although they may show outwardly similar behaviour.

 

Philip