A fox on the prowl in its Bristol, U.K., home By Virginia MorellIn a famous Siberian experiment carried out the 1950s, scientists turned foxes into tame, doglike canines by breeding only the least aggressive ones generation after generation.
The creatures developed stubby snouts, floppy ears, and even began to bark.Now, it appears that some rural red foxes in the United Kingdom are doing this on their own.
When the animals moved from the forest to city habitats, they began to evolve doglike traits, new research reveals, potentially setting themselves on the path to domestication.“I’m not so much surprised as delighted,” by this study, says Lee Dugatkin, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Louisville, who has written about the