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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by SMcCandlish (talk | contribs) at 01:55, 3 September 2020 (→Requested move 2 September 2020: sup; replies). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Problem with this article's title

The title of this article is misleading and I propose the following change for the following reasons.

  • Old title: Domesticated silver fox
  • Proposed Title change: Russian Domesticated Red Fox
  • Totally false. As anyone who looked into the study knows, this was never about "red foxes" being domesticate, this was a study done on tamed silver foxes which unlike the untamed ones are not aggressive. When isolated from untamed silver foxes, tamed silver foxes become even more attached to humans.

Reasons:"Silver fox" refers to simply a fur color variation of the species Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes). The foxes used in the Russian program are all Red Fox. Some individuals exhibit the silver fur variation. However, many of the foxes do not, therefore it is inaccurate to call all foxes in this program "Silver Foxes". However, all foxes in this program are Vulpes vulpes ("Red Foxes").

The proposed title change would clarify the following:

  1. - That the experiment has domesticated a SPECIES (Red Fox
  2. - That the silver color was not created by the russian domestication experiment.
  3. - That not all foxes domesticated by the experiment are the Silver color. Red, Platinum, Cross and Georgian are all morphs found at the institute.
  4. - That not all Silver Foxes that you see are russian domesticated foxes. For example, people in the u.s. sometimes have Red Foxes as pets, and often these are the Silver color because that is a very common color produced on fur farms. Regardless of color, any foxes from fur farms outside the Russian institute are not genetically tame.
  5. - Finally, adding "Russian" to the title clarifies that these domesticated foxes are the foxes specifically from the Russian program. This is an important distinction, because technically speaking, most foxes found in fur farms around the world are domesticated because they have been selectively bred by humans for traits such as fur color, resulting in a genotype that differs from the wild type (the definition of domestication.) The Russian project is unique in that it selects for tameness a behavior, rather than physical traits such as fur color. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kayfedewa (talk • contribs) 19:44, 13 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you have anymore questions or need more information and sources about this feel free to ask.

Here is an image featured in the march 2011 issue of national geographic (article here: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/03/taming-wild-animals/ratliff-text/2 ), that shows 4 of the common color types at the russian institute (red, silver, platinum, georgian white.). Lyudmila trut is pictured in the center. ( Image: http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u102/kayfedewa/Zoya/russianfoxes_zpszl0txbox.png ) 

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kayfedewa (talk • contribs) 19:22, 2 February 2015 (UTC)  Kayfedewa (talk) 22:37, 2 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Is there a reason this title is not in sentence case? Is Russian Domesticated Red Fox a trade name or something? Kortoso (talk) 18:55, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The University of Chicago Press has published How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-started Evolution by authors Lee Alan Dugatkin and Lyudmila Trut. For now I'm adding this information here rather than integrating it into the article - which needs serious review, particularly in comparison with the more extensive content on the page: Dmitry Belyayev (zoologist)#Belyayev's fox experiment. See also the Template:External links requesting links be upgraded to citation references for specific content as yet unreferenced in the text. -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:05, 7 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Really looking forward to you integrating the info from the book! 46.242.9.195 (talk) 13:46, 22 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I would also very appreciate this information in the main text. Udo.bellack (talk) 18:55, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 28 September 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Already moved by Redgro, but consensus is to move. For future reference, please allow the RM to run for seven days before closing, thanks.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:40, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Russian Domesticated Red Fox → Domesticated red fox – Current title is a) over-capitalizing (against MOS:LIFE, MOS:CAPS, WP:NCCAPS), and b) over-disambiguating. In theory even Domesticated fox could work (and there need to be some redirects). It should not be shortened to "domestic", because that's not a synonym, and these are not domestic animals, but domesticated just enough to be kept by people who know what they're doing. However, there may be some other fox-domestication program in the works using some other species, so Domesticated red fox appears to be good enough. We don't need "Russian" on this, since some of these animals are already being bred outside of Russia (though our article doesn't go into this).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:43, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Selective Breeding as described by Darwin???

You wanna maybe try that one again? Kinda different things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.186.125 (talk) 23:07, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed page move

Hello All,

  • In 2005, this article was created with the name of "Domesticated silver fox" because it was this melanistic form of the red fox that was the subject of the "farm fox experiment"
  • In 2015, the article was moved to "Russian domesticated red fox" (see above), and so "Domesticated silver fox" became a redirect to it. (I assume some politics was played in this renaming, because the silver melanistic colour morph only occurs in North American red foxes, and those that have been imported from North America for fur-trading purposes i.e. Russia and Europe. The editing record shows that the proposer appears to have gained a username purely to achieve this move, then departed Wikipedia.)
  • In 2017, the article was moved to "Domesticated red fox" (see above). I have spoken with the move proposer - he was not aware that the redirect "Domesticated silver fox" existed at that time.

I propose that the article be moved back to its original "Domesticated silver fox" to be more WP:PRECISE. I shall wait one week to receive editors views before initiating a formal move request. William Harristalk 10:50, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Why not only "Silver fox"?. In particular, the first sentence is wrong: The domesticated red fox is a form of the wild red fox (Vulpes vulpes) which has been domesticated to an extent under laboratory conditions. That's wrong. Silver fox is primarily a wild form of the red fox. See German Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silberfuchsfell (silver fox skin). -- Kürschner (talk) 12:30, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That is also a good idea. English Wikipedia has an article on the Silver fox (animal), which has a large section that links to this article. That article is only 30kb in size, and is nowhere near as well developed as on the German Wikipedia. Let us see what ideas others may have. William Harristalk 22:27, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As I said in user talk, I think this article should move to Domesticated silver fox to be more WP:PRECISE, get its wording cleaned up, and then we merge the redundant WP:CONTENTFORK material in the other articles into this one, leaving behind only short WP:SUMMARY treatment with a {{Main}} hatnote, in the other relevant articles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:15, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 2 September 2020

Domesticated red fox → Domesticated silver fox – WP:PRECISE - it was the silver fox variant which underwent the domestication experiment. William Harris (talk) 10:20, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:29, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • @William Harris: Why not just move it to Domesticated fox? Is the disambiguation needed? 15:03, 2 September 2020‎ User:Ahecht
    Yes, it is needed because of the Fuegian "dog", which was a fox and (though now extinct) actually has a better claim to domestication, strictly defined.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:48, 3 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: According to the article, the species that was tamed is the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), and some of them are red, according to at least one of the linked sources. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:34, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • This isn't about fur color, it's about a genetic population (in this case not presently classified as a subspecies, as far as I know, but that could change). You can sometimes get reddish-colored offspring from silverish-colored members of the silver population. It's just an interplay of dominant and recessive genes. It's unfortunate that the populations have been named as if the fur color is immutable, but that still doesn't mean this about domesticated foxes that happened to be red, it's about domesticated foxes which happen to be silver foxes, a sup-population of red foxes. The present article title is too broad, a bit like "US senators from the Carolinas" when we have no rationale for not being specific about North and South Carolina.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:54, 3 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per WP:PRECISE.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:54, 3 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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