Biologists have noticed that these wild animals have undergone physical, genetic and behavioral evolutions, similar to those of animals subjected to domestication. Like wolves, who have become friendly doggies, the most docile individuals have been favoured.
Humans and bonobos were so far the only species to have evolved. To live nicely together, they have domesticated themselves. Elephants would be the third such species. Hervé Poirier, editor-in-chief at the magazine Epsiloondiscusses this development.
franceinfo: Are you telling us that elephants were one of the first species to be self-domesticated?
Herve Poirier: The story is fascinating. Biologists have long studied the effects of domestication. Take the wolf. For thousands of years, humans have selected, in each generation, the most sociable individuals, the least impulsive. And biologists have shown that selection for this trait, and associated genes, has had much broader evolutionary impacts.
The wolves have thus become nice doggies, with smaller brains, a more childish face, a more spotted coat, a tail that curls up, a prolonged childhood, a more playful behavior, a more developed language. Ditto for pigs, sheep, cows: it is the syndrome of domestication.
However, if we look at our morphology, our behavior, and above all our genes, it seems that humans, too, are affected by the syndrome. Who domesticated us? Ourselves! We would have domesticated ourselves, favoring the reproduction of the most docile, kindest, most civilized individuals.
Kind ? The human?
Put 200 chimpanzees on a plane, and you’ll see. The chimpanzee did not self-domesticate – its genes show it, and so does its infanticide rate. So far, apart from humans, the syndrome has only been identified in bonobo monkeys – and there is debate in marmosets.
Now, thunderclap, a team of biologists has just shown that it is probably also true, for the three living species of elephants, which live in Africa and Asia: their physiology, their behavior, and especially their genes, present the syndrome. It must therefore be the same for their common ancestor, more than 7 million years ago. Who would then be the oldest known species, to have self-domesticated, to have civilized itself. At the time, chimpanzees prove it, this was not the case for our ancestors…
Self-domestication would therefore not be specific to primates?
The phenomenon is probably more general than we thought. Researchers now invite to look at dolphins, whales, parrots. What if, in many branches of life, selection also operates on the propensity to live together peacefully, to develop a peaceful society, a culture, a language? What if kindness was one of the mainsprings of evolution? This is the beautiful question that the elephant asks us today.