3 ms·
I wonder whether something like this will happen to urban foxes - the ones in London are extraordinarily bold, sometimes happily trotting past humans a foot or
by mrec 9y ago
I wonder whether something like this will happen to urban foxes - the ones in London are extraordinarily bold, sometimes happily trotting past humans a foot or two away.
I particularly wonder this because of Belyayev's famous experiments [1], in which selecting silver foxes for reduced flight distance (i.e. "tameness") led to them developing visibly doglike characteristics. I haven't noticed any sign of this in urban foxes yet.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fox_(animal)#Initial_experimentation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fox_(animal)#Initial_ex...
- taneq 9y agoMaybe the speed at which it happens is a factor? I'd imagine that breeding them directly for tameness and nothing else would push them in a different direction than allowing them to self-select for fitness in a highly populated urban environment.