Aladdin: Animal Domestication

We all love Raja, Jasmine's tiger from the movie “Aladdin”. It’s hilarious to see how he protects her from her ugly suitor, lives in luxury and has a beautiful friendship with the princess... Just a perfect symbiosis.
Symbiosis? What it’s that? It’s like an ‘arrangement’ between two different groups or species, to the advantage of both parties... It’s a win-win situation. Raja provided the princess with protection, and the princess provided him with food and shelter.
But... Aren’t they more like friends in the movie? The answer to this is yes, and there’s a good explanation for that, because in the movie, we don’t actually see a symbiotic relationship. In the case of some animals (like cats and dogs) and over the last centuries, this symbiosis was replaced by something else: domestication.
First, we have to know the definition of this word. Domestication is the process of breeding reorganization of wild animals and plants into domestic and cultivated forms according to the interests of people. So, a domestic animal is an animal that lives in close association with people, and because of this ‘reorganization’, it’s generally unlikely to survive in the wild, these creatures depend on us (this is not to be confused with taming, be careful! Taming is a conditioned behavioral modification of an individual, not a permanent genetic modification of a bred lineage).
After learning about this the question was, how Jasmine went from having a fierce and dangerous tiger to a friendly and charismatic companion? Well, let’s just say that what we do know is how to differentiate a domesticated animal from its wild counterpart, but we don’t know much about the exact process of it.
Domestication happens through selective breeding (also called artificial selection because of human intervention). Individuals that have desirable traits are selected to reproduce, and these desirable traits are then passed along to the future generations. This results in modifications, mostly concerning morphoanatomy and behavior. The last ones are the first to appear, being one of the most remarkable behavioral changes, shared by all domesticates, their tolerance of proximity to people. Changes concerning the morphology are all caused by a feature known as neoteny - the retention of juvenile traits like soft fur, floppy ears, and bigger heads relative to their body size.

We cannot verify that, I don’t even think on going near a tiger, suit yourself if you want to... So, what do you think? Was Raja a domesticated animal or a tamed animal?

Photograph by @TheCats

Tangled: The Golden Flower

The other day, I was in the Taj Mahal, and I noticed something that caught my attention: the lily-like flower carved in the marble walls of the great mausoleum. I remembered that, in the Tangled movie, the Golden Flower was a Lilium, a very similar (not to say the same) flower. Why would they use a Lilium? The plant that Rapunzel’s mother ingested in the original fairy tale was a Rampion, that has a totally different flower... So I started researching. The first time a Lilium appeared in history was in a painting in Crete, in the year 1580 BC. For the Greeks, this flower was very precious: a myth says that it was created with Hera’s breast milk. For many cultures, this Lily symbolizes purity, chastity and virtue, and in a few cases death. In some others, it even represents Heaven on earth, or reaching a paradise in the afterlife. As for it’s pharmaceutical value, it was commonly believed to have magical qualities, using it to treat fever, wounds and arthritis in the Victorian Era. In E...

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Homemade Poisons

We all see how fast Snow White falls on an eternal slumber after taking one bite from a poisoned apple. In some versions, Snow White wakes up by unchoking herself after a good shake, other versions look up to the romantic version of true love's kiss ... Fairy Tales, always so unreal... I started searching for what kind of poison could have been the one that Queen used to rid herself from her stupid stepdaughter. It cannot be true love’s kiss, so what made her wake up from her slumber? Some while ago, I found a video from The Film Theorist , in which he explains what really saved Snow White , after having an amount of Deadly Nightshade poison. If someone else has done the research and posted the results... What am I doing with this?! Well, I became suddenly curious about how the hell could I do some homemade poisons. My studies changed from what poison did the princess took, to what poisons could I make in my home, just like the evil character in the movie. Some of what I found are...

Brave: The Fire Waterfalls

Is it true? Does the Fire Waterfall really exist? Why is it called that? These are the questions that I asked myself when I saw the first two or three scenes of ‘Brave’... And I’m here to answer those questions. Yes, the Waterfall really exists, and it’s called the “Horsetail Fall”, a seasonal waterfall that flows in the winter and early spring. Unlike what we see in the movie, this waterfall is not located in Scotland, but in the east side of El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, California. The “Horsetail Fall” is also known as the “Firefall” because of a beautiful optical illusion that takes place here only a few days in the year. Around the second week of February, the setting sun hits Horsetail Fall at just the right angle to illuminate the upper reaches of the waterfall. And when conditions are perfect, Horsetail Fall glows orange and red at sunset. These ‘Perfect Conditions’ are: First and foremost, Horsetail Fall must be flowing. This depend...

The Green Papyrus

Search This Blog