Dmitry Belyaev selected & bred the least timid foxes. Decades later, they had become doglike: floppy ears, curly tails, playfulness, whimpering and a host of other physiological and behavioral changes had emerged based solely on strict selection for tameness. Human contact was strictly minimized and no other training was done, but the result was amazing.
Millennia of evolution miraculously compressed into decades!
[Домашняялисадома, PD image of a domesticated fox at home]
The title image for this post shows a staue erected at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Институт цитологии и генетики Сибирского отделения Российской академии наук, where Belyaev carried out his groundbreaking research.
[Belyaev_DK_fox, Памятник академику Д. К. Беляеву и прирученной лисе, CC--BY-SA Sirozha]
This statue was erected in memory of the great scientist and academician Dmitry Belyaev, a full member of the highly prestigious Russian Academy of Sciences Российская академия наук, whose painstaking and dangerous research (other scientists were executed or exiled to Siberia for studying forbidden subjects) offered important clues as to how dogs and other animals may have been domesticated over the millennia.
1959年蘇聯遺傳學家貝里也夫 Дмитрий Константинович Беляев 展開長達數十年的篩選：只有友善（不會咬人，不會逃避人類）的狐狸可以繁殖，結果半個世紀以後，大多數狐狸變得和狗非常像：原來豎直的耳朵變得鬆軟、尾巴也跟著捲曲、整個狐狸變得貪玩、也可以像狗一樣聽懂人類叫他的名字等等，然而眾多生理、行為變化完全都不是篩選條件，科學家一直嚴格限制實驗組和人類接觸的時間，沒有人故意訓練小狐狸。
[Public Coggle: 馴狐記摘要, 原作者不詳, 全文見參考文獻 #8]
可惜90年代，國家對這些遺傳實驗的研究補助金都結束了，還好有一些狐狸以價格快達一萬美金賣給了幸運的寵物愛好者，國外研究人員也參加研究行列。
Interesting Videos & References
Note that some of the foxes in these videos are probably *not domesticated Russian foxes bred in Novosibirsk, merely tame wild foxes who have learned to accept human beings.
1. Russian Experiments Make Pet Foxes
This is a charming introduction to how Belyaev’s foxes were domesticated. Wouldn’t you like to have a pet fox? What does the fox say? 此處的say指叫聲：『狐狸的叫聲到底怎樣啊？』
2. Dmitry Belyaev and Fox Experiments
This video seems like a grainy excerpt from a longer film. Very unusual for YouTube, some of the comments are quite intelligent and well worth reading. Although the intelligent-sounding narrator is unidentified, he is often criticized.
Sample Comment Democritus Abdera: But what does this experiment say about human beings? Let's say, for example, that humans invented an artificial selection system called "the judicial system." This "crime and punishment" system, over the course of many generations, removed the most violent and aggressive humans from the population…
3. Домашние лисы [= foxes at home]
Don’t be scared off by the Russian title of this compilation video, which features shots of endlessly playful domesticated foxes (with a pleasant music track in the background), but nobody speaking: very much like watching a relaxing cat video.
4. а если вы споёте, а может быть, залаете... (an article from the Russian popular science magazine Наука и жизнь)
С. ГОГОЛЕВА, кандидаты биологических наук E. ВОЛОДИНА, И. ВОЛОДИН, А. ХАРЛАМОВА, доктор биологических наук Л. ТРУТ.
https://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/14644/
5. Trut, Lyudmila N. “Early Canid Domestication: The Farm-Fox Experiment”
Foxes bred for tamability in a 40-year experiment exhibit remarkable transformations that suggest an interplay between behavioral genetics and development”
American Scientist, Vol. 87, No. 2 (March-April 1999), pp. 160-169
http://www.eebweb.arizona.edu/Courses/Ecol487/readings/Early%20Canid%20Domestication,%20AmSci.pdf
6. How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution
by Lee Alan Dugatkin (Author), Lyudmila Trut (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/How-Tame-Fox-Build-Dog-ebook/dp/B06WWD9P7K/
7. 馴狐記：俄國演化遺傳學家為了研究動物馴化，在新西伯利亞進行一項大膽、歷時數十載的演化遺傳實驗。撰文／卓特（Lyudmila Trut）、杜加金（Lee Alan Dugatkin），翻譯／張亦葳
http://sa.ylib.com/MagArticle.aspx?Unit=featurearticles&id=3692
8. 馴狐記 （Coggle摘要，原作者不詳）
https://coggle.it/diagram/Wqp_8_yPNYfj3NsC/t/馴狐記
9. Domesticated Red Fox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_red_fox
10. Dmitry Belyayev (Дмитрий Беляев)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Belyayev_(zoologist)
Previous Fox articles:
Cheuan Deng 犬燈 “The Dog Lantern”, a 狐狸精 fox spirit story from the 聊齋志異 Liaujai Jyhyih, by 蒲松齡 Pwu Songling
https://steemit.com/cn/@wentong-syhhae/cheuan-deng-the-dog-lantern-a-fox-spirit-story-from-the-liaujai-jyhyih-by-pu-s-ngling
Chinese Fox idioms-1 狐假虎威 Fox Borrows Tiger’s Majesty hú jiǎ hǔ wēi / hwu jea huu uei
https://steemit.com/cn/@wentong-syhhae/chinese-fox-idioms-1-fox-borrows-tiger-s-majesty-hu-ji-h-wei-huu-jea-huu-uei
Chinese Fox idioms-2 兔死狐悲 When the Hare Dies, the Fox Grieves, tù sǐ hú bēi / tuh syy hwu bei
https://steemit.com/cn/@wentong-syhhae/chinese-fox-idioms-2-when-the-hare-dies-the-fox-grieves-tu-s-hu-bei-tuh-syy-hwu-bei
Four Kinds of Foxes 四種狐狸 (雙語）
https://steemit.com/cn/@wentong-syhhae/four-kinds-of-foxes
Who I am
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@wentong-syhhae/enthusiastic-intp-polyglot