Hipothetical alien civilization (rar!)

[Shroom Man 777]

I'll keep it short, but to the point.

I've heard the turning point of human civilization came with the discovery of agriculture. That without it, we couldn't have gotten together to make empires and nations and such.

So, this would be impossible with a purely carnivorous critter, right? I mean, sure, herbivorous species would still discover farming and their society would evolve from a hunter-gatherer one to... a more modern one, but carnivorous species won't have any incentive to farm. But what about raising animals? Like raising chickens so they can eat their eggs. Would that be possible? Sure, carnivores might have a bit of trouble, since they would rather eat the critters they've captured instead of raising them. But if they're smart enough, can they do this? Can they raise chickens so they can suck on their eggs?

[Jarl Sven]

Humans made the transition from hunting animals to raising them and a god portion of the crops we raise is used for fodder.

Why couldn't pure carnivores have developed agriculture as a way of feeding their prey?

[Xenophobe3691]

Well, we're omnivores, and we've learned to keep flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. If a being is aware enough to know of the future and what privation could do, then they should know enough to hoard food.

Then again, looking at the Average American and their problem with savings, I'm proved wrong.

[Zero]

I don't believe there would ever have been incentive to cultivate crops unless they were directly usable by us. There would be no incentive to develope agriculture at all, and they couldn't have domesticated animals if the animals had nothing to eat. I can imagine that it's possible that in following the herd around, they would learn of the food source they ate, but would they have any rational reason to create it themselves? The animals would keep moving. I don't see, personally, how it would happen.

[Shroom Man 777]

How about raising chickens to eat eggs? Think of the carnivorous critter as a sentient oviraptor.

[Lusankya]

Nothing to say they couldn't have started off as nomadic herdsmen.

[Jarl Sven]

I can see creatures essentially guarding water holes and chasing away the competition to protect their prey

Sort of like the Lapps herding reindeer
They sort of semi-domesticated them



Maybe in place where the climate had wide variations in rainfall there would be pressure to not only defend the water sources for your prey but also perhaps to defend pastures as well.


It obviously wouldn't start out as full blow agriculture
Maybe it would start with protection, selective hunting, gelding of males with undesirable traits, and periodic burning to encourage forage re-growth?

I do like the oviraptor idea. Maybe some sort of symbiotic relationship where the egg layers get their nest protected and essentially give a portion of their eggs as “protection” money.

Perhaps if the egg layers or whatever other prey was available only ate a limited range of vegetation like a koala or a panda?

Of course relying heavily on one species that relies heavily on one other sounds like a tenuous position in evolutionary terms but that might be the pressure a species would need to develop a technological alternative like agriculture.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I'll keep it short, but to the point.

I've heard the turning point of human civilization came with the discovery of agriculture. That without it, we couldn't have gotten together to make empires and nations and such.

So, this would be impossible with a purely carnivorous critter, right? I mean, sure, herbivorous species would still discover farming and their society would evolve from a hunter-gatherer one to... a more modern one, but carnivorous species won't have any incentive to farm. But what about raising animals? Like raising chickens so they can eat their eggs. Would that be possible? Sure, carnivores might have a bit of trouble, since they would rather eat the critters they've captured instead of raising them. But if they're smart enough, can they do this? Can they raise chickens so they can suck on their eggs?

Pure carnivores aren't good candidates for civilization. Mostly because a successful pure carnivore has already specialized into a body and brain layout which would maximize its effectiveness as a hunter. Less successful carnivores tend to feel the cold hand of Darwin hustling them off the evolutionary stage in fairly short order. And large fractions of a carnivore's brain are devoted to processing its sensory input, with enough left over to pick up and refine hunting strategies. They don't need the improvisational foraging skills that a more omnivorous animal has, so consequently, their brains are unlikely to be selected to general intelligence.

Pure herbivores are also poor candidates for civilization. The energy budget of a pure plant eater isn't enough to support a large, extravagant, general-purpose brain.

[Shroom Man 777]

How about a scavenger?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Humans made the transition from hunting animals to raising them and a god portion of the crops we raise is used for fodder.

Why couldn't pure carnivores have developed agriculture as a way of feeding their prey?

Because hominids weren't pure hunters, they were omnivores. Pulling fruits and nuts off trees and digging tubers out of the ground was just as viable a way of getting food as scavenging meat off lion kills, or hunting down animals with pointy sticks. To develop agriculture, you have to associate plants with food. To develop ranching, you have to associate plants with food, and then the feeding of those plants to animals to get better food. A purely predatory animal has absolutely no evolutionary reason to make the intellectual leap of leaves = good to eat.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

How about a scavenger?

All else being equal, a scavenger is just a particularly lazy sort of carnivore. There is also significant overlap between predators and scavengers. Lions and hyenas hunt live prey, but won't pass up a cheap meal. Though if you're talking a scavenger, like a black bear or a raccoon, then the answer is "maybe". But, then again, both bears and racoons are omnivores.

[Shroom Man 777]

Hrmmm... how about dogs? Aren't dogs omnivorous? They also eat rice and stuff...

[wolveraptor]

For all intents and purposes, canids are pure carnivores. Sure, they'll eat the occasional berry or fruit, but they don't depend on the stuff like racoons and bears do. Omnivory is taken to another level by them critters.

IMO, one way for a carnivorous sentient species to evolve is if it's prey is extremely formidable, such that pack hunting tactics are required to bring it down. Suppose the prey is omnivorous, and very intelligent itself, rapidly (in evolutionary terms) developing their own herd behavior (more complex than that of cows) to defend against the predator. One must remember that herbivore evolutions drives predator evolution. As prey species die out, adapt and evolve, so do predators. A stable, unchanging prey species will not illicit a great deal of change from the predators.

Suppose the hypothetical pack hunters are dextrous with their third pair of limbs, which were initially evolved for delicate handling of the rubbery eggs and fragile young. The pair of limbs are strong to carry the surprisingly heavy babies, but have enough fine motor skills to clean out the amniotic fluid from in between their chelicerae.

Let's see: our hypothetical (rar!) species now has dexterity, intelligence, and a drive to become more intelligent. You just might have a sort of sentience evolving.

[Jarl Sven]

....
Because hominids weren't pure hunters, they were omnivores. ........ A purely predatory animal has absolutely no evolutionary reason to make the intellectual leap of leaves = good to eat.

Yeah I know that.

The original poster was just asking us to suppose some hypotheticals.

I thought that is a little more interesting than just saying "No" .

We came to agriculture long after we developed intelligence. Could some other path be viable?

There are species of ants which “farm” mold by collecting piles of leaves on which it grows. So intelligence may not be all that it is cracked up to be when making that leap from the thing you eat to the thing that what you eat… eats.

Now if it worked for mold eaters….what about maggot eaters? Or feeders on other larvae?



Could primitive Xorts from the planet Zog have knocked Gropeberries to the ground to attract the Frells that they ate? Could a climate change that made gropes more rare or some adaptive evasion by the Frells be sufficient pressure to selectively breed the Xorts?

I’m having a hard time finding a convincing scenario but I still think some sort of evolving symbiosis as described above might be the best bet.

shrug

[wolveraptor]

Ants are incredible...they show how much can be accomplished by pure instinct, and that minds are overrated. There are ants that attack other hives and subdue their workers, converting them into slaves that tend to the queen, gather food, etc. It's like what the Spartans of Greece did. And, there are ants that farm aphids, collecting the honey-like juice they squirt out, and storing them in swollen carrier ants. How cool is that?

[Junghalli]

A carnivore sapient probably would take longer to develop fixed agriculture. Probably they'd start off following around herds of herbivores. Then they start taking small steps to use their intelligence to keep the herds healthy. Leading them to water holes and feeding grounds, or scaring away other predators. Eventually you'd get a full-blown pastoral nomad culture. Then eventually one group might just pick a limited area to settle down and start more of a ranching style agriculture, rather than migrating with the herds. With this comes all the benefits of sedentary civilization, eventually.

[Imperial Overlord]

Agriculture is too far down the development curve. The real point of importance is tool use. Brains are resource hogs and our ancestors' brains weren't that much different from that of other apes until around the time we started using stone tools. Then brain sized increased. Once (if) the carnivores get to tool use, then progressing to herding and agriculture are in the cards.

Dogs and cats are omnivores because of what we feed them. Behold the mighty homo sapien sapien. He has fed the dog and the cat grain and made the solitary cat a social animal, even in the wild. Fall down and worship his opposable thumb and large brain.

[Darth Raptor]

A world full of particularly dangerous or elusive prey could be a catalyst for the evolution of high intelligence.

[wolveraptor]

Agriculture is too far down the development curve. The real point of importance is tool use. Brains are resource hogs and our ancestors' brains weren't that much different from that of other apes until around the time we started using stone tools. Then brain sized increased. Once (if) the carnivores get to tool use, then progressing to herding and agriculture are in the cards.

Dogs and cats are omnivores because of what we feed them. Behold the mighty homo sapien sapien. He has fed the dog and the cat grain and made the solitary cat a social animal, even in the wild. Fall down and worship his opposable thumb and large brain.

You mean shaping rock with a specific idea of what you were going to make. Many creatures make and use tools. Chimps will adjust sticks so that they can be used in termite mounds, and apes can even be taught to smash rocks and then look for sharp shards. But apes can't figure out how to shape the stone knowing what they're going to get in the end. It's beyond them.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Another problem is resource management,
Our society today has agriculture in a high level and we still have massive starvation, if we only ate meat the population would only be sustainable at a fraction of its current level over a large area.

[wolveraptor]

Predators were always rarer than their herbivorous counterpart. This is nothing new. It would make them more susceptible to wide-spread disease though. Essentially, they'd be more fragile as a civilization.