Find amazing facts about animals, science, history and geography, along with fun competitions, games and more. Subtitles by: Vasiliki Xipolitou … Visit National Geographic Kids today! Breeding is man’s attempt to control heredity, the inheritance of certain traits that are passed from parent to offspring via genes. Strains of red fox (Vulpes vulpes) with markedly different behavioural phenotypes have been developed in the famous long-term selective breeding programme known as the Russian farm-fox experiment. The Russian fox breeding experiment produced docile animals, much as selective breeding over millennia produce domestic dogs. An experiment running for 50 years in Russia demonstrates how how the wolves could have been domesticated into dogs. The fox-farm experiment's role in unraveling that complexity is all the more remarkable for how it began. SibFox was supposed to purchase the tame Siberian foxes (also known as silver domesticated foxes or Belyaev's Experiment) from the breeder in Russia and then supposedly had a contractual agreement with the buyer in North America. The Russian domesticated red fox is a form of the wild red fox (Vulpes vulpes) which has been domesticated to an extent, under laboratory conditions. In just a few decades, while selecting for a single trait (tameness), experimenters discovered that other traits of the animals were also changing unintentionally, giving them an appearance and temperament much closer to dogs, and very different from the wild foxes. Domesticated foxes are now available for purchase outside of Russia. Keep reading Russians will send you a tame fox puppy for $4k–or $7k if they handle the paperwork This project, termed the “farm fox” experiment, was started in 1958 by Russian scientists Dmitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut, who bred wild silver foxes in an attempt to make them tamer. You can get one directly for $4,000, but you have to manage all the exotic animal licenses. They have been breeding them since 1949 or about that time. The experiment was purposely designed to replicate the process … This video isn't by us, we only did the subtitling during a study based on Belayev's experiment with silver foxes. Purchases may also be made directly from the Russian Institute of Cytology and Genetics, by contacting: The Russian domesticated red fox is a form of the wild red fox which has been domesticated to an extent, under laboratory conditions. The Russian fox breeding experiment produced docile animals, much as selective breeding over millennia produce domestic dogs. Some people up in Siberia are doing some experiment in domesticating foxes. They are the result of an experiment which was designed to demonstrate the power of selective breeding to transform species, as described by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species. A Soviet scientist created the only tame foxes in the world In the 1950s a Soviet geneticist began an experiment in guided evolution. They are the result of an experiment which was designed to demonstrate the power of selective breeding to transform species, as described by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species. One American distributor offers 100% domesticated foxes from the Russian experiment.The cost for purchasing a domesticated fox through a distributor is approximately $7000 for people living in the U.S.A. . That contract required the buyer to maintain … He wanted to show how domestication works PHOTOGRAPH BY DARYA SHEPELEVA The researchers sequenced the genes of 10 foxes from the aggressive and tame populations, and assembled a complete genome of the silver fox (Vulpes vulpes). For $7,000, a company will get you a tame fox, product of a famous Russian breeding experiment into domesticating animals. A fox that is part of an experiment started by Russian geneticist Dmitry K. Belyaev Courtesy Ceiridwen Terrill The battered Volga bounces us … It was said to be very difficult to import a Russian fox into the states and SibFox was supposed to help get through that red tape. Also, the fox is neutured, so unlicenced genetacists won't breed their own line of domesticated foxes in their backyard illegally. If you are interested in aquiring a tame fox (get me one too, while you're at it) visit www.sibfox.com.