Animals such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster serve a major role in science as experimental models.[179][180][181][182] Animals have been used to create vaccines since their discovery in the 18th century.[183] Some medicines such as the cancer drug trabectedin are based on toxins or other molecules of animal origin.[184]
People have used hunting dogs to help chase down and retrieve animals,[185] and birds of prey to catch birds and mammals,[186] while tethered cormorants have been used to catch fish.[187] Poison dart frogs have been used to poison the tips of blowpipe darts.[188][189] A wide variety of animals are kept as pets, from invertebrates such as tarantulas, octopuses, and praying mantises,[190] reptiles such as snakes and chameleons,[191] and birds including canaries, parakeets, and parrots[192] all finding a place. However, the most kept pet species are mammals, namely dogs, cats, and rabbits.[193][194][195] There is a tension between the role of animals as companions to humans, and their existence as individuals with rights of their own.[196]
A wide variety of terrestrial and aquatic animals are hunted for sport.[197]
Symbolic uses
The signs of the Western and Chinese zodiacs are based on animals.[198][199] In China and Japan, the butterfly has been seen as the personification of a person's soul,[200] and in classical representation the butterfly is also the symbol of the soul.[201][202]
Animals have been the subjects of art from the earliest times, both historical, as in ancient Egypt, and prehistoric, as in the cave paintings at Lascaux. Major animal paintings include Albrecht Dürer's 1515 The Rhinoceros, and George Stubbs's c. 1762 horse portrait Whistlejacket.[203] Insects, birds and mammals play roles in literature and film,[204] such as in giant bug movies.[205][206][207]
Animals including insects[200] and mammals[208] feature in mythology and religion. The scarab beetle was sacred in ancient Egypt,[209] and the cow is sacred in Hinduism.[210] Among other mammals, deer,[208] horses,[211] lions,[212] bats,[213] bears,[214] and wolves[215] are the subjects of myths and worship.