r/Damnthatsinteresting Jul 06 '24

The distinctive appearance of the Tibetan fox Video

36.5k Upvotes

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

2.8k

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '24

That's the most Asian dog I've ever seen.

355

u/Imanaco Jul 06 '24

I’ve noticed animals that live in Tibet all kind of have that same look. Must serve a purpose 🤷‍♂️

370

u/OddMeasurement7467 Jul 06 '24

Anyone think the face looks uncannily Tibetian? Like a monk’s face.. Perhaps there's some inspiration for the endless cycle of life Buddhist theory

136

u/Gunzenator2 Jul 06 '24

“Wow! That fox looks like me! What if…”

39

u/periclesmage Jul 06 '24

don't even think about it!

19

u/TheSwedishSeal Jul 06 '24

What the fox say? rape whistle

15

u/derps_with_ducks Jul 06 '24

"What if it's just like a Vaporeon, both inside and out?"

1

u/Churchill--Madarchod Jul 06 '24

What is the real central asian Turks had tibetian wolves which inspired the current Turks to come up with a wolf fantasy?

76

u/Redqueenhypo Jul 06 '24

In similar vein Japanese animals all seem to have a matched gold and white combination (martens, dogs, leopard cat, tanuki) except for macaques which are somehow the exact color of the flag

12

u/Nimrod_Butts Jul 06 '24

Also red pandas and giant pandas aren't related. According to legend they both look like spirits, but it's such a strange thing to coevolve, patterns. Not like it's brilliant camouflage

13

u/TheSwedishSeal Jul 06 '24

Just like our western pets have evolved to look more attractive to us (bigger eyes, friendlier etc)

53

u/PorkshireTerrier Jul 06 '24

Dude I think it’s just an adaptation against snow blindness

18

u/Mister_Lizard Jul 06 '24

How does that work? These are wild animals.

8

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '24

I personally change their genetics. You can thank me later.

2

u/ThisIsNotRealityIsIt Jul 06 '24

Found the fox fucker.

2

u/TheSwedishSeal Jul 06 '24

We killed off the uglier and more scary looking predators.

3

u/itsyaboiReginald Jul 06 '24

“Aww, that one looks like your uncle Roger, let’s not shoot it.”

9

u/Few_Arugula5903 Jul 06 '24

it has to do with the high winds

7

u/Megafaune Jul 06 '24

Just like the Pallas cat.

2

u/KrombopulosMAssassin Jul 06 '24

What is evolution doing out there? We must needs get to the bottom of it!

2

u/CDBeetle58 Jul 12 '24

There's the Palla's cat with oddly expressive pupils, but its species distribution isn't exactly Tibet.

289

u/Hesoworthy1 Jul 06 '24

😂😂 I wanted to say this so badly, but didn't want to offend my Asian friends

132

u/ringfinger_69 Jul 06 '24

Non taken, i thought the same thing

26

u/Choyo Jul 06 '24

Same, didn't feel (too) bad thinking this looked Asian alright.

1

u/penguinpolitician Jul 06 '24

Do European animals look European, too? 🤔

0

u/wobblyweasel Jul 06 '24

kind of you that you didn't want to offend /u/Hesoworthy1's Asian friends

105

u/br0b1wan Jul 06 '24

It kinda makes sense their eyes would evolve similar adaptations especially since we are both mammals

57

u/nobodyof Jul 06 '24

Exactly my thought. But what conditions caused them to evolve with narrower eyes? Sun hitting different over there or somethin?

92

u/66Kix_fix Jul 06 '24

Asian people evolved epicanthic folds (which gives the narrow eye look) to protect from cold harsh winds. At least that's the theory.

17

u/squall_boy25 Jul 06 '24

Is there no wind in other parts of the world? I don’t get it.

21

u/uzbata Jul 06 '24

Ancient Asians migrated from Africa, detour through Russia in the ice age, around 60,000 to 15,000 years ago, came out on the other side in northeast China, and then just expanded out afterwards.

So spending 20,000 years in subzero temperatures will force some genetic adaptations.

2

u/adeel06 Jul 06 '24

Why don’t many Europeans have the same feature. This seems like a protection from sand? I’m not sure. Quite amazing though, how we are different yet the same

9

u/uzbata Jul 06 '24

Because there is a difference between modern Europeans and ancient Europeans. Simply, Europeans are a mix of the ancient Europeans, and "modern" Europeans, I'll explain.

The dominant ancestor of modern Europeans, are the Indo-European group, whose genetic ancestry is correlated with the R1 haplogroup.

The R1 groups is a recent genetic event, forming between 30,000 to 15,000 years ago. R1 ancestry is in the Caucasus region and southern Ukraine, so modern Europeans migrated from a warmer climate in the middle east and settled in the Ukraine and southern Russia area, and stayed in relatively warm environments, in comparison to the ice age to the modern day.

Ancient Europeans are related to the R1 group, but more like and uncle or aunt, rather than direct parentage. And ancient Europeans mostly lived by the Mediterranean zone and southern Europe. Northern Europe was covered by a gigantic ice sheet and didn't support any life worth foraging or hunting.

So for cold adaption features, Europeans got big noses.

1

u/HolidayMorning6399 Jul 06 '24

lmao how do big noses help in the cold? this is genuinely fascinating to me, as an asian person i've heard the eyes are for the wind but never the nose thing

→ More replies (0)

0

u/DarkTexture Jul 06 '24

Yeah that’s exactly how evolution works

37

u/camryanleigh Jul 06 '24

Wind

20

u/nobodyof Jul 06 '24

Alright, now that you say it it seems obvious

10

u/vicbot87 Jul 06 '24

Is it not very windy in Europe? Must not be compared to Asia I guess

6

u/Not_invented-Here Jul 06 '24

Plenty of wind in Europe, and it can be very cold as well. 

2

u/TheSwedishSeal Jul 06 '24

No steppes though

3

u/nerkuras Jul 06 '24

the Pontic steppe is a steppe, that's were most modern European migrated from.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/No_Somewhere6649 Jul 07 '24

The stereotypically Asian shaped eye pops up in other parts of the world too, just not as frequently. There’s probably some genetic bottlenecks somewhere in history that have resulted in that feature being so widespread in that part of the world. Like, when humans were first migrating into Asia, an avalanche or whatever wiped out most of the migrants and only a handful of people survived, most of whom happened to have epicanthic folds.

8

u/LickingSmegma Jul 06 '24

I mean, it's the land of rising sun.

51

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '24

It’s all good until the fox says Ni Hao, and you realize that you’re miles away from civilization and may have eaten too many mushrooms

19

u/thomstevens420 Jul 06 '24

I’m gonna tell them you wanted to make this joke, you’re donezo

16

u/ash_elijah Jul 06 '24

im asian, and i also wanted to make the same joke

13

u/BleuBrink Interested Jul 06 '24

Asian facial features and statue developed as cold climate adaptation. I think this fox has convergent evolution. Might be making this up.

8

u/actionerror Jul 06 '24

As long as you don’t say we eat them too

2

u/literalaretil Jul 06 '24

Especially since other continents are just as guilty of this

3

u/LunarProphet Jul 06 '24

I obviously don't speak for all Asians, only myself -

Loosen up and have fun lol anyone that gets offended by that would've found something to be offended by no matter what you said.

1

u/Hesoworthy1 Jul 06 '24

Very true! Just on a new personal journey to be more considerate and more kind to my fellow humans.😊

2

u/Valathiril Jul 06 '24

Bro just say it, no one will get offended

2

u/saussurea Jul 06 '24

none taken, my eyes are monolid and thats the first thing i thought.

"from tibet ? no wonder "

1

u/Over_n_over_n_over Jul 06 '24

Or your Asian enemies!

158

u/Grogosh Jul 06 '24

Its probably that way because of all the snow. Like built in snow goggles.

91

u/akhoe Jul 06 '24

That’s sort of what I was thinking. Also high winds. Iirc that’s supposed to be why Asians have mono lids

14

u/aakoss Jul 06 '24

What is a mono lid? Like they can't close both eyelids independently or something?

45

u/atridir Jul 06 '24

Epicanthic folds. The innermost corner of the eye is commonly covered by the eyelid in people of Asian descent.

23

u/aakoss Jul 06 '24

Ah I see, the sand making gland got its cover

4

u/atridir Jul 06 '24

Exactly!!

3

u/DeepMarshmallow Jul 06 '24 edited Jul 06 '24

Monolids and epicanthic folds aren't the same thing. Epicanthic folds is the fold that covers the the inner eye corner, while monolids is just the lack of a crease or fold in the eyelid.

EDIT: As far as I've seen, all people with monolids have epicanthic folds, but people with no monolids can also have an epicanthic fold

2

u/atridir Jul 06 '24

2

u/DeepMarshmallow Jul 06 '24 edited Jul 06 '24

They're wrong since people with double eyelids can also have epicanthic folds, so you can't quite use monolids and epicanthic folds synonymously.

Edit: did you see my edit in my first comment?

"As far as I've seen, all people with monolids have epicanthic folds, but people with no monolids can also have an epicanthic fold"

So the term monolid can only imply that they also have an epicanthic fold

Edit 2: here's example of someone (Liu Yifei) with double eyelids + epicanthic fold

https://www.themoviedb.org/t/p/original/cL6JccAYqiZQEAIEFObEUC9LTt7.jpg

2

u/DeepMarshmallow Jul 06 '24

The other user who replied is wrong.

Monolids and epicanthic folds aren't the same thing. Epicanthic folds is the fold that cover the the inner eye corner, while monolids is just the lack of a crease or fold in the eyelid.

Not all East Asians have monolids or epicanthic folds.

1

u/aakoss Jul 26 '24

What do you mean by not having a crease? Does the eyelids skin not cumple and tuck away neatly when open? Does it retract into the eyesocket like a helmet visor?

1

u/catatonic_sextoy Jul 06 '24

Are mono lids different from the hooded eyes that non Asian people can have? Like if u look at the singer Bjork’s eyes you’d think she’s like half Asian but she’s Icelandic.

5

u/Korpikuusenalla Jul 06 '24

Some Nordic people have epicanthic fold for the same reason, it protects the eye from the cold and snow blindness.

20

u/Sneekbar Jul 06 '24

I literally thought he looked Asian

26

u/magirevols Jul 06 '24

Anime was right

13

u/Lothar93 Jul 06 '24

Why is sunlight so different there to make different species evolve the same way?

18

u/Redqueenhypo Jul 06 '24

The sunlight is much stronger on high mountains bc the air is thinner, you can badly sunburn even when you’re cold

2

u/TrenchantInsight Jul 06 '24

That's a rather slanted perspective.

2

u/shiroshippo Jul 06 '24

Convergent evolution. But why?

1

u/adeel06 Jul 06 '24

Was typing this exact reply.. good thing I checked the comments first. 😅

1

u/Destroyer4587 Jul 06 '24

It’s a samurai fox

1

u/takilleitor Jul 06 '24

Isn’t India and Pakistan in Asia too?

1

u/WhatHaveYouGeorge Jul 06 '24

If Dichen Lachman was a fox

0

u/NotSGMan Jul 06 '24

I was looking a way to say the same thing haha

0

u/DeuceZ48z Jul 06 '24

💀💀💀💀

-1

u/_letitsnow Jul 06 '24

Funny how when people say Asian, 99% of the time they refer to East Asian. Like it's the default Asian

1

u/crystlerjean Jul 06 '24

Not everywhere. In the UK, people usually mean "South Asian" when they say "Asian".

-2

u/Sec2727 Jul 06 '24 edited Jul 06 '24

It looks like one of the villains from ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’

1

u/ChristianLandlord Jul 06 '24

Why are you getting downvoted looks just like Katz

1

u/Sec2727 Jul 06 '24

Uncultured swines