Not mine, but by several people on tumblr (Archive.org link in case the tumblr link pushes a sign in)
Did things evolve to like to be petted because humans like to pet everything
OR…
Did humans evolve to like to pet everything because everything on earth responds in some way to touch?
Touch is nice. All creatures big enough to be petted respond to touch.
Even my fishes like being gently petted (and no I don’t do it a lot, my hands stay out of my tanks most of the time). I put my hands in the tank and they brush themselves up against my fingertips, gently waving through the water.
I had a couple of football sized koi that loved getting rubs on the ridge on their “head”. I also had a tortoise who loved head pats, she was a weird one though. Seemed far more social than any tortoise I’d met before. It was both adorable and terrifying to see her tear ass when I’d visit in the morning. It wasn’t that she was fast, she just didn’t care who or what was between her and I.
Tortoises love pets and shell scratches. I have never seen a tortoise that was well taken care of that wasn’t friendly and outgoing. I think people really underestimate how social and how loving some reptiles can be.
I like to think something random and really specific like this might be the Great Filter.
Warning for Reddit link, but… The Great Filter: Cheat Code literally has our bond with a certain animal be why we passed one of, I think three? great filters
Armadillos are vectors for Leprosy please don’t pet them. No offense, but I would rather you go pet large predators than lifelong disease vectors.
We’re so quick to say human hands are perfect for holding fruit and veggies while I think they’re perfect for pets ☺️
I got to pet an armadillo once at a grade school assembly. It was neat, really warm and leathery.
Can confirm! Held one recently at this crazy place that had all sorts of animals for huggin’. We don’t have ‘roos here but you bet my ass was huggin a ‘roo. What the fuck is a binturong? Fuckin adorable, and huggable. Consider it hugged. Porcupine?
…well, that one I just pet. Didn’t realize you can just pet them. And they’re like 4x bigger than I expected from movies. V v sweet tho. I also only pet the capybaras. They didn’t look like they wanted to be hugged. Too chill for hugs.
Now that I think about it, there was also a porcupine at the event with the armadillo. As long as you pet in the direction the quills lay, you’re fine. Pet the other way… well, I didn’t try it but I don’t think the outcome would be very comfortable.
Absolutely! I also learned that they can’t shoot/fling their quills out, which I thought they could do for most of my life!
One must assume that domestic armadillos are less risky, but I would hesitate to pet an armadillo as I’ve heard they commonly carry leprosy.
Leprosy famously has a very low R0 value. Low enough that it’s really surprising that it was ever considered an epidemic.
Can’t you get leprosy from touching armadillos?
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This nocturnal animal, the only mammal other than humans that is known to get leprosy, is a common sight in Florida. Papers estimate that, in some areas, 15 – 20% of armadillos carry the *M. leprae *bacteria.
“There have also been reports of people getting leprosy after coming in direct contact with nine-banded armadillos, which can carry the bacteria that causes leprosy.“
You wanna gamble on being immune to bacteria by all means, I’ll keep my hands off them to be safe.
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I don’t have 6k for leprosy treatment but fortune on your roll. I’m just saying there is a risk of contacting it through touch for the sake of clarity. It’s a weird thing that can happen from a mostly harmless animal that can have shitty consequences.
no! to get leprosy from an armadillo you’d have to kill them and eat their (liver or kidney i forget which has the leprosy) fuckin RAW. they do not carry leprosy outside of this organ and you can’t get it from touching them in any way. they don’t deserve the slander, pets for all the armadillos!
Do you have a source on that? Everything I’ve found through google says otherwise.
“There have also been reports of people getting leprosy after coming in direct contact with nine-banded armadillos, which can carry the bacteria that causes leprosy.“
can’t seem to find what i had seen before with all those details after a quick search but some evidence for the touch vs eating bit is here: here.
Over 60% of the Brazilian people tested had positive antibodies for the bacteria, which is widely accepted as proof of exposure. This doesn’t mean that looking at or being around an Armadillo that carries leprosy will give it to a human. The researchers collecting the data from the region believed that the transmission occurred because the people there eat the Armadillos. Since they are abundant, people there hunt and kill them for food, unaware that the Armadillos carry leprosy.
for the life of me i can’t remember where i heard it but it was in the last few weeks and i heard not read it so maybe it was a yt video. sorry!
regardless the point is it’s pretty rare to catch and nowadays easily treatable and only a small fraction of armadillos have it and we gave it to them 400 yrs ago and in places where people do get infections from armadillos it’s in areas where they’re so common they’re regularly eaten. maybe i was mashing those facts together weirdly in my head.
20% is not a small number. Also it’s wrong to claim you can only get it from eating their liver or kidneys raw when you can catch it from direct contact alone.
Regardless of if it is treatable or not it’s irresponsible to make claims that are factually wrong with something that can cause debilitating nerve damage before you even know what it is.
20% isn’t the number i saw, it was 16%, and that is a small portion; it means if you encounter an armadillo there’s an 84% chance it doesn’t have it. combine that with 95% immunity and the debateable chance of contraction by simple touch when most sources say you need prolonged exposure to contract it even if you are one of the 5% vulnerable, and the long standing stigma and mistreatment against these creatures for it, and that just because i can’t find the exact thing i’m referencing doesn’t mean i’m factually wrong when a quick perusal of the shitty search results shows many sources disagreeing with each other on number infected as well as can touch transmit it, nah, i’m not being irresponsible saying you can pet the armadillos.
also your source proving me wrong is a single line in a florida source saying ‘there are reports you can get it with touch’. lmfao.
Saying you can only get it from eating raw liver is wrong. I’m not gonna argue with you.
They can carry rabies, so maybe don’t go picking up random ones in the wild
This nocturnal animal, the only mammal other than humans that is known to get leprosy, is a common sight in Florida. Papers estimate that, in some areas, 15 – 20% of armadillos carry the *M. leprae *bacteria.
Oh, I wasn’t trying to counter your claim, rather meaning to add to it.
Humans are Space Orks.
I tried to pet a honey badger. Turns out honey badgers don’t care.
They don’t give a fuck.
Nasty!
Turtles and tortoises also like pets sometimes and not just their heads. Their shells are surprisingly sensitive.
I like to be pet! Just sayin
It’s true I’m a human we really do that
God save anyone who hurt a humans pet
@[email protected] Wrong community, but oh well, it was dead anyways
I distinctly remember “humans are the friendly ones”/“humans are willing to pack bond with a lot of stuff” as a common HFY theme.
Ohh, it’s related to that?
If I die bcs I was petting some creature, that’s a good cause to go.
Don’t go petting Bison.
I don’t really care if you die but they don’t like people petting them, and those of us who respect them enough to just watch them don’t want overfamiliar people causing them to stay too far away for us to see them.
Do feel free to pay a visit to a pet shelter and spread some love around even if you can’t take one home.
Oh, Im absolutely mindful of not harming the animal or it’s kind, that includes not changing their behaviour towards humans (humans are terrible for them).
So yes, no wild bisons or yesdaughters.
If there’s a human that pets wasps then point them out while i go fetch a can of Raid.
I do like to pet mosquitoes as hard as possible though.
