3 ms·

This is one of my favorite things. Look at what they achieved with foxes in less than a century, then think of the tens of thousands of years we've domesticated

This is one of my favorite things. Look at what they achieved with foxes in less than a century, then think of the tens of thousands of years we've domesticated dogs. The whole field of "dog science" is both fascinating and heartwarming.

goodJobWalrus 11y ago
I read about those before. As I remember, they managed to breed the aggression out of them pretty quickly, but it's much harder to make them want the company of people, the way dogs do.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  The article quotes someone speaking about the foxes: Foxes in Class I are friendly toward experimenters, wagging their tails and whining. In the sixth generation bred for tameness we had to add an even higher-scoring category. Members of Class IE, the "domesticated elite," are eager to establish human contact, whimpering to attract attention and sniffing and licking experimenters like dogs. They start displaying this kind of behavior before they are one month old. It took them a long time to get them to mostly reproduce with those traits (the modern ones only reach 80%), but the traits appeared in 6 generations.
  - dpeck 11y ago
    Reproductive maturity at 10 months, so wild to at least some offspring fully "tamed" in less than a decade of selective breeding.
n0us 11y ago
There is an excellent and simultaneously light hearted Nat Geo documentary on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO11bdsWvOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO11bdsWvOo
Viperus 11y ago
RadioLab has also produced a podcast on changing the nature/behaviour. The third story is about the soviet experiments on red fox domestication: http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-new-normal/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-new-normal/
ethnomusicolog 11y ago
one thing that has always fascinated me is how the spread of "civillisation" is often akin to some "auto-domestication" in the traits that appear in a general population.

goodJobWalrus 11y ago

I read about those before. As I remember, they managed to breed the aggression out of them pretty quickly, but it's much harder to make them want the company of people, the way dogs do.

maxerickson 11y ago
The article quotes someone speaking about the foxes: Foxes in Class I are friendly toward experimenters, wagging their tails and whining. In the sixth generation bred for tameness we had to add an even higher-scoring category. Members of Class IE, the "domesticated elite," are eager to establish human contact, whimpering to attract attention and sniffing and licking experimenters like dogs. They start displaying this kind of behavior before they are one month old. It took them a long time to get them to mostly reproduce with those traits (the modern ones only reach 80%), but the traits appeared in 6 generations.
- dpeck 11y ago
  Reproductive maturity at 10 months, so wild to at least some offspring fully "tamed" in less than a decade of selective breeding.

n0us 11y ago

There is an excellent and simultaneously light hearted Nat Geo documentary on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO11bdsWvOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO11bdsWvOo

Viperus 11y ago

RadioLab has also produced a podcast on changing the nature/behaviour. The third story is about the soviet experiments on red fox domestication: http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-new-normal/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-new-normal/

ethnomusicolog 11y ago

one thing that has always fascinated me is how the spread of "civillisation" is often akin to some "auto-domestication" in the traits that appear in a general population.