Message #578620

[The Old Man]

It was 6 generations "one generation per year" of foxes chosen strictly for tameness, and they would lick the hand of handlers and allow themselves to be petted and handled. In less than 10 yrs they exhibited flopped ears, coat color variations, and curled tails, also their "adrenal glands" became smaller each generation so it appears that the neural crest cells and hormone secretion from adrenal glands are a big part of genetic mutation.    I had looked this up after the previous post since I hadn't remembered the details.

The other study mentioned above even went so far as to call the neural crest cells  "shape shifter cells".   It all boils down to selective breeding for us and is much more complicated and time consuming for the multiple traits needed in our hunting dogs than when breeding for one single trait such as in the foxes tameness, or milk cows milk production or broiler chickens reaching  a terminal weight and so on.