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How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution
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The University of Chicago Press 2017
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This true story of an amazing breeding experiment in Siberia is "part science, part Russian fairy tale, and part spy thriller" (The New York Times Book Review).
Tucked away in Siberia, there are furry, four-legged creatures with wagging tails and floppy ears that are as docile and friendly as any lapdog. But despite appearances, these are not dogs—they are foxes. They are the result of the most astonishing experiment in breeding ever undertaken—imagine speeding up thousands of years of evolution into a few decades. In 1959, biologists Dmitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut set out to do just that, starting with a few dozen silver foxes from fox farms in the USSR and attempting to recreate the evolution of wolves into dogs in real time in order to witness the process of domestication. This is the extraordinary, untold story of this remarkable undertaking.
Most accounts of the natural evolution of wolves place it over a span of about 15,000 years, but within a decade, Belyaev and Trut's fox breeding experiments had resulted in puppy-like foxes with floppy ears, piebald spots, and curly tails. Along with these physical changes came genetic and behavioral changes, and with each generation, they became increasingly interested in human companionship. To date, fifty-six generations of foxes have been domesticated. In this book Trut, along with biologist and science writer Lee Dugatkin, tells the story of the adventure, science, politics, and love behind it all. Dugatkin and Trut take us inside this path-breaking experiment in the midst of the brutal Siberian winters to reveal how scientific history is made and continues to be made today.
"The science is profound, but the authors write accessibly and engagingly—and their vulpine subjects are awfully cute, too. Of compelling interest to any animal lover." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A cheerful, easy-to-read account. . . . spin[s] complex genetic science into a fascinating story about adorable foxes." —Publishers Weekly
"An extraordinary story." —Times Literary Supplement
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Format:
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Street Date:
03/23/2017
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780226444215
ASIN:
B06WWD9P7K
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APA Citation (style guide)

Lee Alan Dugatkin. (2017). How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution. The University of Chicago Press.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Lee Alan Dugatkin. 2017. How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution. The University of Chicago Press.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Lee Alan Dugatkin, How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution. The University of Chicago Press, 2017.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Lee Alan Dugatkin. How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution. The University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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      • value: Genetics
      • value: Cytology
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fullDescription
This true story of an amazing breeding experiment in Siberia is "part science, part Russian fairy tale, and part spy thriller" (The New York Times Book Review).
Tucked away in Siberia, there are furry, four-legged creatures with wagging tails and floppy ears that are as docile and friendly as any lapdog. But despite appearances, these are not dogs—they are foxes. They are the result of the most astonishing experiment in breeding ever undertaken—imagine speeding up thousands of years of evolution into a few decades. In 1959, biologists Dmitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut set out to do just that, starting with a few dozen silver foxes from fox farms in the USSR and attempting to recreate the evolution of wolves into dogs in real time in order to witness the process of domestication. This is the extraordinary, untold story of this remarkable undertaking.
Most accounts of the natural evolution of wolves place it over a span of about 15,000 years, but within a decade, Belyaev and Trut's fox breeding experiments had resulted in puppy-like foxes with floppy ears, piebald spots, and curly tails. Along with these physical changes came genetic and behavioral changes, and with each generation, they became increasingly interested in human companionship. To date, fifty-six generations of foxes have been domesticated. In this book Trut, along with biologist and science writer Lee Dugatkin, tells the story of the adventure, science, politics, and love behind it all. Dugatkin and Trut take us inside this path-breaking experiment in the midst of the brutal Siberian winters to reveal how scientific history is made and continues to be made today.
"The science is profound, but the authors write accessibly and engagingly—and their vulpine subjects are awfully cute, too. Of compelling interest to any animal lover." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A cheerful, easy-to-read account. . . . spin[s] complex genetic science into a fascinating story about adorable foxes." —Publishers Weekly
"An extraordinary story." —Times Literary Supplement
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        April 3, 2017
        Biologist Dugatkin (The Altruism Equation) and Siberian geneticist Trut, one of the lead scientists of the famous Siberian fox farm experiment, summarize one of the world’s longest ongoing studies in animal behavior in a cheerful, easy-to-read account that expounds upon the wonders of scientific achievement. In 1959, Trut and Russian geneticist Dmitri Belyaev studied the mechanisms of domestication by attempting to breed the perfect dog from scratch. They used silver foxes, close genetic cousins of wolves, and selected for tameness. Within only a few generations (an astonishingly short time by genetic measures), they began to see domestication traits in the foxes, such as wagging tails, floppy ears, piebald coloration, loyalty, and puppy behaviors lasting longer. The researchers discovered that, rather than creating new genetic mutations, changes in hormones related to tameness affected the timing for turning existing genetic traits on and off, which Belyaev called “destabilizing selection.” The authors weave other charming histories of other scientific studies and events throughout the book, including the discovery of hormones, pedigree analysis, animal communication, human evolution, and Belyaev’s travels in international scientific circles. Writing a simple, straightforward narrative suitable for lay readers, Dugatkin and Trut spin complex genetic science into a fascinating story about adorable foxes. Photos.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        March 15, 2017

        How did our hunter-gatherer ancestors manage to turn the fiercely predatory wolf into a sweet-natured, loyal puppy dog? While animal (and plant) domestication is considered a crucial milestone in the advancement of human civilization, little has been understood about the initial steps involved in domesticating a wild animal--those that had to occur before deliberate breeding could begin. Dugatkin (biology, Univ. of Louisville) and Trut (evolutionary genetics, Inst. of Cytology & Genetics, Novosibirsk, Siberia) recount the remarkable story of a domestication experiment, begun in the early 1950s, to see if wild silver foxes (farmed for their fur in Siberia) could be tamed--the brainchild of Russian geneticist Dimitri Belyaev. Selectively breeding the least fearful and aggressive foxes, Belyaev's research group ended up with hand-licking, tail-wagging, rub-my-belly, completely lovable fox-dogs in less than a decade. As the lead researcher of this experiment for almost 60 years and the first to rear a fox pup in her home, coauthor Trut provides unique insights into how the animals evolved and flourished over the decades. VERDICT This intriguing, well-written account of an ongoing experiment in canid domestication should delight readers interested in the origins of the human-animal bond.--Cynthia Lee Knight, Hunterdon Cty. Historical Soc., Flemington, NJ

        Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        Starred review from February 15, 2017
        Can new kinds of animals be brought into being outside of DNA tinkering and Frankensteining? Most certainly, as a long-running Russian experiment reveals.Humans have been living among domesticated animals for many thousands of years. The first to be domesticated, paleontologists have long believed, was the dog, bred from the wolf. Enter Dmitry Belyaev, a Russian geneticist who "had become fascinated by the question of how an animal as naturally averse to human contact and as potentially aggressive as a wolf had evolved over tens of thousands of years into the lovable, loyal dog." Roughly 40 years ago, as Dugatkin (Biology/Univ. of Louisville; The Altruism Equation: Seven Scientists Search for the Origins of Goodness, 2006, etc.) chronicles, Belyaev and Dugatkin's co-author, Trut, moved to a Siberian farm where foxes were bred for their fur. There, they began a far-reaching series of experiments that yielded "the perfect dog"--however, the perfect dog, or at least something like the wolf-descended dog, was a fox, its evolution from one biological form to another having occupied just a blink of an eye in evolutionary time. Their experiment, note the authors, is one of the most revealing ever conducted in the sphere of evolution and animal behavior. The narrative includes a wealth of asides on how science is conducted under totalitarian regimes--Belyaev began his career under the shadow of Stalin and the charlatan Lysenko--but is at its most fascinating when it centers on the business of how an animal is in fact tamed. What qualities would be favored? Gentleness and playfulness, to be sure, but also a certain kind of transcendental calmness ("fox pups are serenely calm when they're first born, but as they age, foxes typically become quite high-strung") and youthfulness. The science is profound, but the authors write accessibly and engagingly--and their vulpine subjects are awfully cute, too. Of compelling interest to any animal lover and especially to devotees of canids of all kinds.

        COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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shortDescription
This true story of an amazing breeding experiment in Siberia is "part science, part Russian fairy tale, and part spy thriller" (The New York Times Book Review).
Tucked away in Siberia, there are furry, four-legged creatures with wagging tails and floppy ears that are as docile and friendly as any lapdog. But despite appearances, these are not dogs—they are foxes. They are the result of the most astonishing experiment in breeding ever undertaken—imagine speeding up thousands of years of evolution into a few decades. In 1959, biologists Dmitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut set out to do just that, starting with a few dozen silver foxes from fox farms in the USSR and attempting to recreate the evolution of wolves into dogs in real time in order to witness the process of domestication. This is the extraordinary, untold story of this remarkable undertaking.
Most accounts of the natural evolution of wolves place it over a span of about 15,000 years, but within a...
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Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution
publisher
The University of Chicago Press
tableOfContents

Prologue: Why Can't a Fox Be More like a Dog?
1: A Bold Idea
2: Fire-Breathing Dragons No More
3: Ember's Tail
4: Dream
5: Happy Family
6: Delicate Interactions
7: The Word and Its Meaning
8: An SOS
9: Clever as a Fox
10: The Commotion in the Genes

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

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      • code: SCI027000
      • description: Science / Life Sciences / Evolution
      • code: SCI034000
      • description: Science / History
      • code: SCI070030
      • description: Science / Life Sciences / Zoology / Mammals