Do you think humans are the only species that experiences genuine empathy with other animals? I mean, there are various examples of, say, cats adopting chickens or elephants making friends with dogs, but most of these can be traced back to human influence foreign to the respective species.
Why is it only humans who keep pets? Why is it only humans that actually take care of other species for the sole sake of companionship?
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that is the cutest dog ever
got any moar?
Good question, OP.
Nyet
Ants can keep livestock.
...
I am aware, but this is out of purely pragmatical purpose because the livestock supply the ants with food. The ants only care about the livestock for their own food supply, whereas a human may care for an animal (or another human) even if all logical factors would mark the relationship as being entirely one-sided.
there's a gorilla who has a pet cat
she's been raised by humans though, so might not happen in nature
I can't think of an animal keeping a pet but Koko the Gorilla as posted actually experiences empathy towards humans. Koko met the actor Robin Williams and when he was notified that Williams passed away he made the sign for sadness and didn't talk for the rest of the day.
I would put argue that a certain level of self awareness is needed. So I'm pretty sure some apes may be capable of something similar.
Dolphins for that matter are actually smart enough to have sex for fun. They even group up to rape female dolphins and use other dolphins "names" even though they are actually not present (kinda like talking about someone else behind their back)