Domesticated silver fox

The domesticated silver fox (Vulpes vulpes forma amicus) is a form of the silver fox, a melanistic form of the wild red fox, that has been to some extent domesticated under laboratory conditions. Domesticated silver foxes are the result of an experiment designed to demonstrate the power of selective breeding to transform species, as described by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species. The experiment at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia, explored whether selection for behaviour rather than morphology may have been the process that had produced dogs from wolves, by recording the changes in foxes when in each generation only the most tame foxes were allowed to breed. Many of the descendant foxes became both tamer and more dog-like in morphology, including displaying mottled- or spotted-coloured fur. In 2019, an international research team questioned the conclusion that this experiment had provided strong support for the validity of domestication syndrome. They did conclude that it remains "a resource for investigation of the genomics and biology of behavior".