Dmitri Belyaev was a Soviet geneticist who lived when the study genetics was repressed in the Soviet Union. Belyaev was sent to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk to do experiments on silver foxes to try and domesticate them for the fur trade. He also wanted to see if one could domesticate the red fox (the silver fox is a coloration of red fox) and possibly apply this to other animals that live in the colder regions of Russia.
Here’s a clip that shows what happened:
The foxes experienced changes that we might associate with domestic dogs. It happened remarkably fast and has led some theorists about canine evolution, such as Raymond Coppinger, to argue that dogs arose relatively quickly from a wolf population. The wolves that had the ability to feed near humans got to eat more food. Those wolves that were less likely to run away began to breed in a population, and these became the ancestors of the domestic dogs we have today. They experienced the same physiological changes that these foxes experienced.
Coppinger and his wife, Lorna, have written an interesting book on dog evolution. I would put it in my top ten list of dog books. It’s not a Lassie book. It’s hardcore behavioral ecology.
