GeriatricHydralisk t1_j9uj5yb wrote on February 24, 2023 at 5:36 PM

Reply to comment by Sharlinator in The book Why the West Rules—for Now states that there are only 148 species of mammal on the weigh over 100lbs. Is that accurate? by MorrisCody

>Also, over half of the species are aquatic or semiaquatic.

Yeah, I could see the original sentence being "148 species of terrestrial mammals", especially for a book generally focused on human history. Or "terrestrial" accidentally got lost in revisions and drafts and proofs etc.

linuxgeekmama t1_ja98ea7 wrote on February 27, 2023 at 7:52 PM

That would make sense if they were talking about animals that could be domesticated. It would be pretty hard to domesticate whales. If you did, you couldn't use them for farm work or transportation, the way you can with horses, cows, or llamas. You couldn't get wool or milk from them, like you can from sheep.