Why do some other animals like cows or dogs or cats have spots, but humans don’t?

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Basically, why arent’s there any people with colouration like tortoiseshell cats, Dalmatian dogs, or Holstein cows?

In: Biology

8 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Fun story! All of those weird spot patterns we see on the animals you listed are *not* “natural”. They are seemingly the result of domestication. What’s weird is that we didn’t seemingly select for it. It just kind of happened as we domesticated these various animals because the weird coat patterning is linked to whatever traits also make them tolerate humans more.

Natural spotting patterns do exist of course, such as Cheetahs, Leopards, Giraffes, Deer, and many others. Most of the time those spots serve as some kind of camouflage to allow them to blend in to the environment/background.

Presumably, if you actually “domesticated” humans, we may develop some kind of weird spotting pattern on our skin tone, maybe similar to vitiligo or birthmarks.

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