On foxes, domestication, dogs, and people with crazy hair

So, some important overview, gleaned from a bunch of different articles, about this rather famous and really interesting thing.

It's the 1950's, Siberia. Fox farmers wanted to develop foxes that were easier to handle, for fur production. The long story short is that the results of this experiment were entirely useless to the fur industry, for reasons that shall become known by the end. But what was discovered in terms of genetics, domestication, and human slash dog history is really pretty fantastic. Dmitri Belyaev, whose brother had gone to concentration camps and died there, managed to survive and was given this task (though apparently, Darwinian or Mendelian genetics was "out of favor" in Russia at the time since "Lysenkoism" was the official state position so he had lost a previous research position, and this continued study of genetics was somewhat disguised as physiological research). Side note: I think it is a very sad and odd coincidence that this research, dealing with selective breeding and Darwinism, is undertaken by a man whose brother died in concentration camps, what with the very disturbing extremes of social Darwinism . . . yeah.

The method for choosing the right foxes to breed, by the way, was as simple as Belyaev sticking his gloved hand out in front of the foxes and seeing which ones snapped at him and which ones exhibited curiosity or cowering. The docile ones were bred together, and so on. Surprisingly, behavioral changes were noted in only 10 generations (which differed, I think, from the prevailing idea of how long domestication would really take. In fact, Ray Coppinger also points out the significance of these studies in their break with Darwinism's insistence that change is gradual and incremental, since a constellation of traits has been more or less selected for all at once, in a relatively short amount of time.) (Soviet Scientist Turns Foxes Into Puppies)

Belyaev's rationale is described this way: "Belyaev believed that the key factor selected for domestication of dogs was not size or reproduction, but behavior; specifically, amenability to domestication, or tameability. He selected for low flight distance, that is, the distance one can approach the animal before it runs away." (Silver foxes - Wikipedia). Me: I love that it's called "flight distance" . . . it sounds so scientific.

Over the course of 60 years and 45,000 foxes, strikingly different animals emerged . . . playful foxes with floppy ears, white patches on their fur, smaller bodies, wider skulls, blue eyes, and the tendency to bark, whine, and wag their tails. "Some of the foxes even began to answer to their names," says the narrator in an unattributed Nova special. The tail-lengths became "unpredictable" and some were curly. The significance of this is underscored by a little comment made by Ray Coppinger from Hampshire college in a PBS Nova episode called "Dogs and More Dogs (2004)" (narrated by John Lithgow, by the way):

"It's not a matter of selecting for them because they're not there to be selected for. That variation isn't there [in the wild type]."

(The article where I found these embedded youtube videos can be found here.)

The significance of these findings were amazing. First, it sort of solves this mystery of where all these traits came from if we can't find them in wild wolves. I also learned, from a Discovery channel special, that since then, they have done experiments where they get a tame mother to raise kits from the aggressive pool, and vice-versa. Apparently, the mother's disposition has no effect on the young, and genetics overrides their behavior. Still, the mystery of how all these traits are related was unclear.

They found that adrenaline levels were far lower than normal in the more tame foxes, and realized that adrenaline is also related to a whole host of other hormones, including the production of melanin (coloring).

Anthropologist Brian Hare (mentioned in a few articles, and below, and who, as is the wonderful tradition of people with evocative last names, has the kind of hair style that would warrant mentioning -- see right) says in a Horizon episode called "The Secret Life of the Dog" that when selecting for tameness, we are essentially selecting for juvenile behavior. Infants and juveniles are far less aggressive than adults, he says, and we are sort of freezing them in time.

The curious notion of pointing
More recently, these foxes were used to investigate the unique ability of dogs to follow human gestures, like pointing (talked about in some previous posts and articles).

In a recent visit to Novosibirsk, Dr. Brian Hare of the Planck Institute used the silver foxes to probe the unusual ability of dogs to understand human gestures.

If a person hides food and then points to the location with a steady gaze, dogs will instantly pick up on the cue, while animals like chimpanzees, with considerably larger brains, will not. Dr. Hare wanted to know if dogs’ powerful rapport with humans was a quality that the original domesticators of the dog had selected for, or whether it had just come along with the tameness, as implied by Belyaev’s hypothesis.

He found that the fox kits from Belyaev’s domesticated stock did just as well as puppies in picking up cues from people about hidden food, even though they had almost no previous experience with humans. The tame kits performed much better at this task than the wild kits did. When dogs were developed from wolves, selection against fear and aggression “may have been sufficient to produce the unusual ability of dogs to use human communicative gestures," Dr. Hare wrote last year in the journal Current Biology.

Dr. Hare believes that wolves probably have the same cognitive powers as dogs, but their ability to solve social problems, like picking up human cues to hidden food, is masked by their fear. Dogs, after their fear is removed by domestication, see humans as potential social partners, not as predators, and are ready to interact with them.

(From Nice Rats, Nasty Rats: Maybe it's all in the genes from the New York Times).

The same Horizon episode, "The Secret Life of the Dog" from which Dr. Hare's comments about selecting for juvenile traits comes goes on to explain that the enormous amount of variation we get in dog breeds today probably did come from direct human selection, of course, but that the initial domestication from wolves to dogs was probably the result of this selection for tameness. In other words, he said, at some point people were like "I like the one with the curly tail" and then they tried to get more. So probably at first, we were not interested in "morphological" traits but behavioral ones. I felt like that was a good clarification to make -- that it wasn't that selective breeding was NEVER for physiological or morphological traits, but just not at first.

This is some really old, pixelated video from Cornell (http://cbsu.tc.cornell.edu/) that shows the foxes doing amazingly cute and wonderful things. I saw this video in higher res as part of another documentary/special on the foxes, but can't seem to find it alone in any better quality. This is exactly what I'd want to show on a little video screen next to or on top of a drawing. :)

Here's another video, I think from Cornell, which simply shows a fox in a cage being very friendly and tail-wagging. Maybe it would make more sense to use something like this.

And one that is essentially the same, but showing a lady happily getting the fox out of the cage (and also, this fox turns around on its feet, which is great.)

And then this video, which is part of a Discovery channel show, which is kind of fantastic. Something that i love about this video is the music, especially this sort of magical music that they play when the foxes are being kind and friendly. I love this sort of enchanting thing. I wonder if I could find some music that is similarly enchanting, put it with no-sound video . . . or use other enchanting music with my proposed Sesame-street puppet things.

Vast and more sinister applications

One article in the Guardian said, "It's eugenics, but with foxes, which is less bad. "

(From Nice Rats, Nasty Rats: Maybe it's all in the genes from the New York Times).

People's comments on blog articles reveal how quickly the conversation can move to, often unintentional or unwitting, dangerously racist comments. On one blog, the relationship between melanin and aggression (and thus skin color) comes up, though after a bit of arguing, someone comes up with a rational, level-headed response the nips further master-race talk.

Pets

Another interesting aspect of this story is the fact that these foxes are now sold as pets (expensive ones, I guess). At first, the idea of taking a wild animal and trying to make it a pet seems to have very negative connotations. However, it's interesting to note a couple of things in this case. One is that, given the issue of diminishing funds for research in Russia, the sale of these foxes is actually a good way to support continued research. Scientists from around the globe have expressed concern that, should disease or a disaster befall the Russian population, these animals could all be wiped out in one fell swoop. Many have tried to get some of the foxes for their own research in other countries, arguing it as a way to protect the genetic material for future study. And finally, I was thinking to myself that really, these animals have been bred to enjoy human contact, are especially social, playful, and active. So they are probably happiest as pets, and what else would you do with them all?

There is a great video from the Discovery Channel show (The Ultimate Guide: Dogs) that shows a silver fox as a pet, playing with a dog (which is great on so many levels)

Various side-notes

The same experiments have been undertaken in Siberia with rats, otters, and mink.

And, someone in the comments section of one of these articles suggested the following: "What I don’t understand is why they called it a ’silver fox’ instead of a ‘fog’ which would have been much funnier I think you have to agree." Kind of great.

Some references and links

The article which re-brought all of this research to attention can be found online at American Scienctist: "Early Canid Domestication: The Farm-Fox Experiment", which was written by the mentee of the original researcher. I also have it in PDF form . . . with lots of nice photos.

And then, of course, the Radiolab episode New Nice that, as usual, probably started me thinking about this in the first place. Way to go, Radiolab! :)

Here are some videos of the different fox behaviors: Videos.

Here is a transcript of the Nova show about dogs, which hopefully someday I will actually watch if I can find it online. :)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=evolving-bigger-brains-th