Like you I preferred the allele frequency shift answer for obvious reasons -- like being blatantly correct -- but I definitely have read things that would make >D) A deliberate, conscious process of selective breeding. Incorrect. >Initial domestication of many animals is thought to have been accidental, >caused simply by humans breeding those captive wild animals that acted >tamest. also correct rather than incorrect (though not AS correct as the allele frequency shift), depending on the definition of domestication used. Some of the biologists I have read on this do not consider the earliest domesticated, but only tamed, with domestication coming later. It's one of those "If a tree falls in the forest" type of wording problems we all know about, so I'd give the folks who took that a half point. Interesting stuff. Never knew they'd been used to hunt any furbearers. How the heck were they used to hunt raccoons? I know what a handful a raccoon can be, having worked with them. To search out winter dens? (In some areas of the nation there have been communal winter raccoon dens have been documented so that would be a very profitable venture if... Of course, once a person knows raccoon scent it is possible to find them sometimes without anyone else's nose working for you. We've done that with otters, too.) >C) Are vectors for dangerous diseases, including rabies, tuberculosis, >and influenza. Correct. A low statistical probability is not the same >as a lack of occurrence. Unless there is something new there since then, the French research on this which I have read recommended there that they be included in a dead-end species grouping for rabies due to the risk of them passing it along being so small, so the wording and related points may not be consistent across nations. In the U.S. the CDC does not permit a dead-end classification (and I don't know if France still has one) because even if there is no record anywhere anytime of a species passing along rabies (as with ferrets the last time I heard from CR of the CDC which was 1997) if it can get rabies then there still is a vanishingly small chance of it passing it along. BTW, for anyone who doesn't know, several types of domestic poultry and pigs are also influenza vector species, cattle are also tuberculous vector species and anthrax vector species, etc. Yes, ferrets can be *possible* vector species of these, with a low probability, esp. for rabies. Also, like Bob said, the rate of serious injuries to children is low, about the same as for domestic rabbits, but don't forget that there have been rabbits who have removed fingers or toddlers on a rare basis so "cute bunny" doesn't really apply. Parents must use appropriate cautions with any animal and children. Interesting stuff... BTW, when tubes were being laid at Argon and at Fermi Labs they used ferrets with harnesses to drag through brushes to get them clean enough to use. Weirdly, we've been told that they didn't at Cern despite them being used there for cabling. This will be of interest: http://www.fnal.gov/projects/history/sep2-1.html It was well known but hadn't been added to the page till very recently. I wonder if they were first used for cabling here or in Europe, or in Canada, or wherever. Telephone deployment began to be widely deployed in the 1880s so ferrets were used very early for that apparently, Telegraphs were in the '70s but Steve does recall offhand when early underground ones were used for telegraph though he thinks it may have been before telephone. May be interesting to see if they were used for those pre 1880s. Boy, are you ever right about some domestications happening rapidly. I have been racking my brains trying unsuccessfully to recall that very new dog breed with dingo in it that is an illustration. Think those came up not much before that case in which a dingo was claimed (and much later found to actually have done it when the remain were found, if memory serves) to have dragged off a baby and killed it from a camping family. Have heard of some Russian foxes that also fit for fast domestication. [Posted in FML issue 4062]