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Summary
Summary
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, by 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, as well. The foxes were bred using selection criteria for tameness, and with each generation, they became increasingly interested in human companionship. Trut has been there the whole time, and has been the lead scientist on this work since Belyaev's death in 1985, and with Lee Dugatkin, biologist and science writer, she tells the story of the adventure, science, politics, and love behind it all. In How to Tame a Fox , Dugatkin and Trut take us inside this path-breaking experiment in the midst of the brutal winters of Siberia to reveal how scientific history is made and continues to be made today.
To date, fifty-six generations of foxes have been domesticated, and we continue to learn significant lessons from them about the genetic and behavioral evolution of domesticated animals. How to Tame a Fox offers an incredible tale of scientists at work, while also celebrating the deep attachments that have brought humans and animals together throughout time.
Author Notes
Lee Alan Dugatkin is an evolutionary biologist and historian of science in the department of biology at the University of Louisville. His books include The Altruism Equation: Seven Scientists Search for the Origins of Goodness and Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose: Natural History in Early America, the latter also published by the University of Chicago Press. Lyudmila Trut is a professor of evolutionary genetics at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics, in Novosibirsk, Siberia. She has been the lead researcher on the silver fox domestication experiment since 1959.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
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. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
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 regimesBelyaev began his career under the shadow of Stalin and the charlatan Lysenkobut 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 engaginglyand their vulpine subjects are awfully cute, too. Of compelling interest to any animal lover and especially to devotees of canids of all kinds. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
New York Review of Books Review
JERUSALEM, by Alan Moore. (Liveright, $24.95.) In a sprawling tribute to his hometown, Moore, the author of "Watchmen" and other graphic novels, traces a single day in Northampton, England, in 2006. The book fuses fantasy and even Joycean tropes to create an entertaining, passionate story. As our reviewer, Douglas Wolk, put it, "It's a vehicle for nothing less than Moore's personal cosmology of space, time and life after death." LEONARDO DA VINCI, by Walter Isaacson. (Simon & Schuster, $22.) Isaacson, an acclaimed biographer of the futurists Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs, turns his focus to the far-ranging talents of the Renaissance genius. The book deals plainly with Leonardo's contradictions, giving the story complexity and depth, and Isaacson interweaves his subject's contemplations of nature with his art. THE CHILD FINDER, by Rene Denfeld. (Harper Perennial, $15.99.) Naomi, a private investigator in Oregon and the novel's title character, is known for her particular aptitude in tracking down lost children. On the hunt for Madison, who's been lost for three years, Naomi confronts memories of her own past as a missing child. The story shifts between her perspective and Madison's, revealing the child's tactics to survive captivity. HOW TO TAME A FOX (AND BUILD A DOG): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution, by Lee Alan Dugatkln and Lyudmila Trut. (University of Chicago, $18.) How did dogs become dogs? This book considers a pioneering Soviet study begun the late 1950s that replicated the domestication process with silver foxes; Trut is the current lead researcher on the project. Our reviewer, Marlene Zuk, praised the book, writing, "It is the backdrop to a story that is part science, part Russian fairy tale and part spy thriller." HALF-LIGHT: Collected Poems, 1965-2016, by Frank Bidart. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $20.) The poems across this collection, winner of the 2017 National Book Award, trace Bidart's evolution over his decades-long career. On display is his approach to autobiographical poetry, interweaving the inner lives of other people (both real and fictional); the method and the resulting poems rank among his most significant contributions to the genre. THE VANITY FAIR DIARIES: Power, Wealth, Celebrity, and Dreams: My Years at the Magazine That Defined a Decade, by Tina Brown. (Picador, $20.) Brown's account of Vanity Fair in the 1980s and early 1990s - by all measures a period of splashy excess - will thrill media junkies. It also offers a look at Brown's own insecurities, particularly the strains of being a career-driven mother.
Choice Review
When Darwin formulated the theory of natural selection, one of his most important lines of evidence was the domestication of pigeons and other animals. Darwin observed that domesticated animals were quite different from their wild ancestors, and he studied the methods of breeders to understand how their artificial selection mimicked the action of natural selection. However, no one had successfully domesticated an animal from scratch until a group of Soviet scientists began an experiment using silver foxes in the late 1950s. The group, led by Dmitri Belyaev (who died in 1985) and Lyudmila Trut, managed to convert wild foxes into tame house pets in just a few generations, as part of a decades-long project that became a classic textbook illustration of evolutionary mechanisms, animal behaviors, and domestication. Dugatkin (Univ. of Louisville) and Trut (Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberia) have produced a delightful history of the project. Their book recounts the story of the experiments in a very readable and non-technical way, while relating the work to genetics, ethology, evolutionary biology, and the spotty history of Soviet science in the mid 20th century. A photos section of the domesticated foxes is guaranteed to touch even the most serious reader. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --John L. Hunt, University of Arkansas--Monticello
Library Journal Review
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 Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Prologue: Why Can't a Fox Be More like a Dog? | p. 1 |
| 1 A Bold Idea | p. 7 |
| 2 Fire-Breathing Dragons No More | p. 26 |
| 3 Ember's Tail | p. 49 |
| 4 Dream | p. 71 |
| 5 Happy Family | p. 90 |
| 6 Delicate Interactions | p. 111 |
| 7 The Word and Its Meaning | p. 133 |
| 8 An SOS | p. 153 |
| 9 Clever as a Fox | p. 167 |
| 10 The Commotion in the Genes | p. 183 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 193 |
| Notes | p. 197 |
| Index | p. 211 |