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Before anyone goes and says she's a "wild" animal know that she is not wild but tame and while bred to be tame like dogs is one form for domestication tame brought about by other means is still being domesticated.
Definitions from a few dictionaries:
adj.
- Of or relating to the family or household: familial, family, home, homely, household. See kin, group.
- Fond of home life and household affairs.
- Trained or bred to live with and be of use to people: tame. See wild/tame.
Pertaining to an environment managed by humans.
Pua has been a lazy one lately anyway she does not like getting up until it is dark so gets up late in the summer till after the solstice and the sun starts setting later. She plays with me once she does get up, digs in her dirt and plays with her log. we had been giving her a rose each night off out bush for a few nights in a row. She got used to that and was very disappointed the first night she didn't get a rose. She licks out the center and tears them appart and even has been poking the stems and licking at them.
Pua and one of her logs
Pua licks out bug holes
Pua in the woods
Heading back to the trail
Finding ants
Checking out a tree
Out looking for ants
Enjoying the sun
any ants in here
She would raid an ant nest but would lick up the baby ants and move on, even though there were lots of ants. Such wasteful behavior is only okay since she has meals waiting at home. I did grab a handful of ants from one nest in a baggy for her to have later. It was hot that day and when she got tired she went up to her carry bag and grabbed it then climbed in and got carried home. She's got her own personal chauffeur when she needs one.
Trying to open the fridge
Blue cheese raid
Fridge raid video:
4:02 AM
Hi, I've read your blog on and off for a few months. I used to study wild monkeys in Costa Rica, and loved watching tamanduas during the rare times I was up early enough to spot one.
I think your tamandua has a super life with you. However, I must disagree with your definition of domesticated. A zoologist defines the terms this way:
wild: an animal with no genetic changes.
domesticated: an animal *WITH* genetic changes vs. the wild ancestors (usually neoteny).
tame: a wild individual habituated to living with humans.
feral: a domesticated individual that never imprinted on humans and who lives "in the wild".
Your tamandua is definitely TAME. She is not genetically different in any way from wild ones. I have an African Grey Parrot who is also tame. Even parrots born in captivity for 3-4 generations are TAME, not domesticated. Domestication takes thousands of years.
10:07 AM
Sorry but the dictionary is not wrong. You and any zoologists using the term are wrong. The term was around before genetics were discovered. If they want to have a special word to define genetically modified to be tame then they should coin one and not warp a traditional word and steal it's meaning. If we all start using words as we see fit and defining them anyway we feel like the language will have no meaning.
Domestic includes both tame and gentility modified for a purpose. It is not my definition it is the definition of the dictionaries and of our ancestors and tradition. My city uses the term correctly in their laws as well. Any animal belonging to a human is domestic by law.
And a wild animal habituated to living with people is no longer wild by definition of wild. Wild is in fact defined as NOT TAME. However a feral cat is both wild and domesticated but is not tame and is wild.
You can't hug a wild animal like a wild raccoon but you can a domestic/tame one. No pet animal should ever be called wild. That is an even worse butchering of our language than misusing domesticated.
Your same zoologists would refuse to call a pet fox or skunk tame even though they have been breed to be much tamer and look different from their wild kin, even though not as tame as the Russian foxes they are tamer than wild by breeding by genetics but your zoologists would say that isn't enough.
6:26 PM
Before a war over definition breaks out, Sharon is talking about technical terms. Just as the way "liberalism" has a far different meaning today than it does to a professor of political science, (esp. in regards to historical context). When people typically apply to the term "domestic" to animals, and the breeding of them, they are referring to whether or not they have genetic changes. You just seem reluctant to accept this, because you're taking it personally, i.e., you think it somehow diminishes the legitimacy of how "tame" your anteater is to call him/her non-domesticated).
I agree; I think it is a confusing way to talk about things. But, this is the way it is typically done by people of this field.
12:34 PM
Its not domestic but tame. The dictionary is a not a bible.