Send to a Friend

Dutchess_III's avatar

Is domesticating foxes an example of humans affecting evolution?

Asked by Dutchess_III (46813points) February 28th, 2014

There is market for tamed foxes. They breed only the best natured ones together. Well, we did the same thing to cows, horses, cats and dogs so they are vastly different than their forebears from thousands of years ago.

I read somewhere, however, that after about 5 generations of domestication their fur coloring started changing, without any particular selection on the part of humans. The patterns became more complicated and colorful. I thought that was cool, but I can’t find the link where I saw that.

So is that an example of pretty quick, deliberate evolution?

Using Fluther

or

Using Email

Separate multiple emails with commas.
We’ll only use these emails for this message.