London Foxes Show Early Signs of Self-Domestication, according to Smithsonian
The National Museums Scotland has a collection of about 1,500 fox skulls, diligently labeled with their original locations in London and the surrounding countryside. And when researchers compared rural fox skulls to those from in the city itself, they found some key differences.
The results, published on June 3 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, show that while rural foxes remain adapted for speed and hunting small, scampering prey, urban foxes have different priorities. Their skulls reflect the different needs of a carnivore that scavenges in a city chock-full of human refuse, ripe for the taking by a cunning canine. Shorter, stronger snouts are better adapted for breaking open packaging and crunching leftover bones, and smaller brains are fine when their meals don’t run away, Virginia Morell reports for Science magazine.
Together, the characteristics resemble what Charles Darwin labeled “domestication syndrome,” a set of traits that accompany a wild animal’s transition to tameness and eventually domestication.
Some ‘urban foxes’ are becoming more self-domesticated by virtue of being in a city environment with easy / easier access to food most of which humans have thrown away . This BBC video shows how this ‘self-domestication’ is actually happening.
Question : do you think this is a good thing or bad thing, that foxes are ‘self-domesticating’ ??
