Imaginary Pets [NOT 20/9/21]

Hi, friends!

Today and tomorrow we’re in big strategy meetings at work and my brain might leak out my ears. So starting the NOT with something silly. 🙂

If there were an extinct animal you could have as a pet, what would it be and why?

Let’s assume that it would have a pet temperament, regardless of how it would actually behave as a wild animal.

I’m torn between 2. I guess I could have both.

First is a Sicilian Dwarf Elephant. They lived on what is modern day Sicily and Malta and were about the size of a cow. They went extinct about 12,000 years ago. Basically I just think elephants are awesome and a dwarf one just sounds so fucking cute. I’d name her Marlena and we’d have adventures.

Second is a giant pterosaur, like quetzalcoatlus, because then it could fly me places and I’d not get stuck in traffic. Also he’d do me a solid and aim his poop on places I don’t like, like assholes who still have Trump signs in their yards. I’d name him Itzcoatl (Itzie for short) and he’d be able to help with the deer and feral pig populations, too.

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28 Comments

  1. I’d love to have a pet Smilodon aka Saber-toothed tiger. I would ride it everywhere Heman style instead of driving.
     
    (Did the font change?… Did I do that?)

    • Ignore the latter part of my comment. The font is back to normal.

      • I was doing some stuff that was changing the comment section for the past couple hours. It should be back to normal now. 🙂

  2. Dire wolf, extinct 10,000-16,000 years.

  3. Cave lion, extinct 13000 years. Mostly because… giant kitty!

  4. Good Lord, this is frightening! It reminds me of Alec Baldwin in Beetlejuice.


    I’d be afraid Itzie would turn their head and gobble me up in one fell swoop if I displeased them. (I do like the idea of a dino named after the Mayan Quetzalcoatl, though.) 

    • Being who I am, I think I’d opt to bring back a recently-extinct species that was important to rainforest biodiversity. Perhaps a small plant or important insect that deforestation decimated. Or one of the three extinct subspecies of tiger. And by “have as a pet” I mean sponsor protected living in a wild, natural habitat. So, along with the ability to bring back species, I’m also going to need money in this hypothetical world. 

      • well, look at you, being all community-minded, responsible, and adultish…
        🙂

  5. I’ve always wanted a bunny for a pet so the Naralagus, the Minorcan Giant Rabbit who I’d have to name Harvey for obvious reasons.

  6. Ankylosaur.
    And we’d go fuck up some cars parked in the bike lane…

    • I can’t get the link to work, but that might just be me.
      Isn’t there speculation that they might be responsible foravocado seed dispersal?
       
      Anyways, A giant sloth would be cool for nothing else, than being able to threaten someone with your “pet sloth” only to have them laugh at you, right before your house-sized buddy knuckle-walks around the corner, and rears up, unfurling it’s giant claws…

      • I think I’ve read that theory about avocados, I can’t remember how much evidence there was.
         
        As far as toilets, the sloths seem to have had favorite places they used. From the article:
         

        Gypsum Cave and others like it in the Southwest have long attracted animals. Scientists believe the caves offered shelter from heat and cold. They may even have served as birthing rooms for some species.
        The caves have yielded the bones of extinct sloths, llamas, camels and horses. But mostly researchers have found remarkably preserved lumps of ancient dung, called coprolites. For some reason, the vast majority were left by the plant-eating sloths.
        “These were sloth toilets for 40,000 years,” Polnar says. Rampart Cave in Arizona had 8,500 coprolites on the surface of the cave floor and more below. It has a low ceiling only because thousands of years of sloth dung gradually raised the level of the floor.

        • thanks for the copypasta.
          that’s a little disturbing, on some level, as caves make nice shelters, and as a hominid, I kinda object to shitting in unplumbed shelters…
          But I think I’ve heard something about current sloths being careful about where/when they defecate, but i don’t know how much current behavior patterns would apply to an extinct relative that is very physically different…
          I’m too lazy to look it up, but I feel like part of the sloth/avocado thing was due to the size of avocad seeds, and basically “well, what the hell else is big enough to swallow these fuckers!?”  Although, I think I’ve also read some vague thing trying to implicate giant sloths in something about joshua trees, and nothing about them approaches the size of an avocado seed…

  7. I’m going to cheat here and say that I would love to have a Bernese Mountain Dog that lives forever.  The main reason why I have never had one is because they are quite short lived–usually around 6-8 years, which is way too much heartbreak to have to deal with over and over again.  But, Oh My God do I want one.

    • I feel the same way about Irish Wolfhounds. I love them, I have always wanted one, but I couldn’t deal with knowing how short their life would be.

      • …irish wolfhounds might be my favorite type of dog…but there are a couple of other things that are likely to ensure I won’t own one…they take up more space than I’ve ever had to spare in the places I’ve lived so far…& if I spent all the money I don’t have on a home big enough to accommodate one I wouldn’t have enough left over for the truckloads of food

        …that said…I always maintained that if there were ever a dog I’d be willing to get up early to exercise…they’d be at the top of the list…so there’s that?

        • But Jake, with a wolf hound, do you really need to get up that early???

           

          They’re so big, I’d imagine that you could simply get yourself an adult-sized one of these with an attached harness, saddle up the Hound, pop a leash on the noble steed which is also attached to your wrist, and let said Hound wander while you nap!😉😁💖

          • …I mean…riding one would be a fantastic idea in the sense that it sounds awesome…& if it were a dire-wolf or something it would maybe even work…provided it didn’t eat me instead

            …but sadly in the real world I rather suspect the poor wolfhound wouldn’t be up to it…there’s a few important skeletal differences between dogs & horses that maybe explain why we ride one & not the other

            …but hauling me around…you might be onto something there?

      • For me, it’s the “needing multiple couches and a MUCH larger bed!” part😉

         

        I think I could maybe handle the heartbreak part, knowing *going in* that anything past 5 (even 3, tbh, with some of the big dogs I’ve known of lately!🙃) would be “bonus” time…

         

        But the SPACE they need to stretch out properly is… a LOT!

         

        I got to meet a couple sweethearts at “pet weekend” out at the MN Renfest a few years back, and we got talking with their humans. They explained that they basically had two (LARGE!) couches that were the daytime habitat of the dogs–and that they humans merely got a bit of space on *either* sofa… and that a California King is too small a bed for humans *plus* the wolf hound which will sleep on the bed if it decides to… and that an Alaskan King is much more appropriate…

         

        And since I’m used to a mere full for me plus Lily, and I can move said full by myself, a wolfhound wouldn’t be a dog I’d ever get until/unless I *own* a home, and never have to move a bed again😉

         

    • I had an anthro prof in college who referred to all Pleistocene megafauna as dire ___. Dire wolves. Dire sloths. Dire beavers. 

      We always snickered at that one. 

      • I was snickering at Super Beaver, so…….

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