(December 20, 2022 at 8:03 am)Anomalocaris Wrote:(December 20, 2022 at 12:51 am)Jehanne Wrote: Biologists have excellent answers to these questions. A pet is a nonhuman animal that lives with or at least among humans, in a dependent (or, in the case of cats, a feigned dependent) relationship such that the animal in question would likely die of natural causes if the humans did not continue to provide for them.
that would qualify the human hair or crotch lice as pets. Indeed so specifically are lice dependent upon humans and would die without humans that the hair and crotch lice would die if just moved into the other’s customary territory on the same human’s body.
They are an invasive species; we did not choose to domesticate them. And, so, I would add the element of conscious human choice to my criteria of what would constitue a pet.
