Domestic animals

Domesticated animals are those populations whose behavior, life cycle, or physiology have been systemically altered as a result of being under human control for many generations.

The term domestic animal applies to those animals that actually live in physical proximity to humans, such as pets and guard animals, or even food species kept very close, e.g.

to live on domestic food scraps and/or so their body heat can be used as 'stable heating'.

Dogs and sheep are among the first animals to be domesticated, followed by goats, then pigs, then cows and zebus, then cats.

Next up are chickens, then guinea pigs and donkeys, then water buffalo, horses, dromedaries, and bees.

And so on.

Domestic animals, in the widest sense, include animals as diverse as songbirds, common carp, pythons and leeches.

The domesticated animals of greatest significant to human history had all been domesticated by 2400 BCE.

These include: • dogs (between 30,000 BCE and 15,000 BCE in Eurasia), • sheep (between 11,000 BCE and 9000 BCE in Southwest Asia), • pigs (9000 BCE, Near East and China), • goats (8000 BCE, Iranian plateau), • cattle (8000 BCE, Europe, Asia and North Africa), • zebus (8000 BCE, India), • cats (7500 BCE, Near East), • chickens (6000 BCE, India and Southeast Asia), • guinea pigs (5000 BCE, Peru), • donkeys (5000 BCE, Egypt), • ducks (4000 BCE, China), • water buffalos (4000 BCE, India and China), • honey bees (4000 BCE, Europe, Asia and Africa), • horses (4000 BCE, Eurasian Steppes), • dromedary camels (4000 BCE, Arabia), • silkmoths (3000 BCE, China), • reindeer (3000 BCE, Russia) • pigeons (3000 BCE, Mediterranean Basin), • geese (3000 BCE, Egypt) • yaks (2500 BCE, Tibet) • Bactrian camels (2500 BCE, Central Asia) • llamas (2400 BCE, Peru) • alpacas (2400 BCE, Peru), and • guineafowl (2400 BCE, Africa).

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