Why was it easier for humans to tame wolves (and it’s still relatively easier to co-exist close to them compared to lions)?
In: Biology
They share absolutely nothing. Wolves do not gather in large packs of unrelated or semi-related individuals with an alpha leader. That is a myth that came from a researcher studying wolves in captivity, where unrelated adults were forced to live together in a small space – a wholly unnatural way for them to live. The author of that book retracted it *decades* ago and no animal researcher or behaviorist takes the theory seriously.
Instead, wolves live in family units. Mom and dad are the “alphas” for the same reason that your parents are the “alphas” when you’re growing up – they are the ones taking care of the pups. They have knowledge and skills and are big and strong. That doesn’t mean they’re strong enough to fight off a pup trying to claim its place as alpha, it means they’re strong enough to fight off anything else trying to kill the pups, and strong enough to get food for the family.
Once the pups are old enough to fend for themselves, they just…wander off to go start their own family units. They *may* eventually challenge each other for control over the territory, but it isn’t like the stronger wolf subjugates the weaker wolf. The wolf that loses just leaves to find a new territory.
Lions *do* live in larger colonies of semi-related individuals with a ruling alpha male. However, it’s not *always* only one male. Sometimes siblings stay together and “rule” the pride together. There are also plenty of roaming, single males that don’t keep a pride, they just wander around, find some females hanging out, mate, and fuck off again. Males *do* fight for control over the pride, and the winner will often kill all the cubs to ensure that the next generation is his alone. When males get old enough, they challenge or leave.
Note, though, that the females in the pride are not merely subjects of the alpha. Females often drive off a male if they don’t like him for whatever reason. Typically, it’s the females that do all the hunting while the male lays about, but if he gets *too* lazy, they might kick him out of the pride. Or they don’t like his smell, or he’s being a dick to the females…whatever the reason, they will group up and fight him together, driving him out of the pride. Then, either the oldest cub will grow into the role of the alpha or some single male will wander in and take over.
Humans tamed wolves because an adult male wolf *might* weigh as much as your average fit human male, and an adult female wolf weighs 20-60 pounds less than that. An adult lion might weigh more than double your average *big dude* and at *minimum* weighs more than your average football linebacker. Consider that wolves evolved to prey mostly on deer – which aren’t *small* by any stretch, but they’re a far cry from the water buffalo, giraffes, and the occasional elephant or hippo that lions eat. Wolves are just a hell of a lot easier to handle. Moreover, humans are big enough and strong enough that your average wolf won’t try to eat us. Predators don’t like a fight, because even a relatively minor injury in the wild can mean death. They want easy prey.
In the wild, predators often coexist with each other, even coexisting with large prey animals if they all know that there’s no point in fighting. A wolf might be comfortable coming closer to an ancient human because we know the wolf isn’t *really* going to come after us unless it’s desperate, and the wolf knows the same. A lion, on the other hand, can make quick work of a human, so we keep our distance and attack them before they get the chance to attack us. Wolves essentially domesticated themselves this way, coming close to human camps to pick up scraps.
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