Social construct.

[Anomalocaris]

What is a pet is subjective in the sense an animal can be a pet, food, or pest depending on what the people around it consider it to be.

A snails exist like humans exist but in terms of evolution there's no clear marker of when human became human and not the great ape humans previously evolved from.

There's not a perfect record of every single minute evolutionary change, we call ourselves human homosapiens because it works as a general description and we don't have to describe every hominid that ever existed.

If we did have a perfect record of every evolutionary change it would still be socially agreed upon labels placed on chosen points within the entire period of evolution.

Humans -are- great apes.  We never stopped being that (and we never will).  We're not homo sapiens, btw, we're homo sapiens sapiens.  "Doubly wise"...we like to call ourselves.  It remains the case that pets are genetically divergent from wild populations..and, yes, even with a fucking spider or a snail, a geneticist could show you the difference.  Pets are not subjective - the coyotes on my ridgeline are not my pets, even -if- some dipshit.... somewhere.... keeps coyotes.   We're pretty interesting there, we do sometimes keep wild animals in cages - like tigers.  End of.  

-but get to the moneyshot for christs sake?  What is the point of pretending that this very simple distinction is somehow incomprehensible?  Would you prefer to argue over whether or not the tarantulas in americans glass boxes are genetically distinct from those in the wild (they are)..or does this get to something worthwhile..at some point?

there is no reason to believe the difference between cultivar and wild organism is systematic and consistent, and not mere named on ad hoc basis in each case according to some a priori determination of which is the wild and which the domesticate.

I mean, other than the pronounced genetic, morphological, and behavioral differences, eh?

I like to argue over arcane things myself...but man..sometimes......  Look, lol, go grab yourself a red jungle fowl and try to start a business selling eggs.  Get back to me on that.  I'd love to see you succeed...but I know you wont......

are we sure those “pronounced” difference don’t in fact overlap heavily between domesticated and wild populations?