關於地球知多少（下）

05-10

中文字：941，建議閱讀時間：1.2分鐘；英文字：555

Wolves and human have had a long companionship, but why do modern dogs look nothing likewolves. There has been an experiment in Russia that has been going on for a long time to try and find the answer to this problem. This is called the

domestic red fox experiment; a quick summary of this experiment is that they

wanted to find out if tameness is a genetic trait. While the foxes that was

used in this experiment was in a fur farm, which meant they had a good supply

of foxes. A person would go to each caged fox and put their hand near the fox,

if the fox was aggressive they would leave the fox to be killed for fur, if the

fox was interested in the hand without aggression they would take the fox and

place it in a safe place for breeding.

All the foxes that would be friendly would be put into a breeding program, the same

test would have been done on the offspring. If the foxes were friendly they

would be placed in the breeding program but if they were violent they would be

culled. This kept going on even to this day, but something started happening

the foxes that would were kept in the breeding program the fur was starting to

change colour. The changes in colour included red, silver (black), platinum,

cross and Georgian white. This could be the reason why dogs look so different

from wolves today.

Early humans would have kept the wolves that would have travelled with them or helped them hunt animals and over time these wolves started to change. One of the earliest dogs that is known to split from the wolfs is the Tibetan mastiff which is

classed as a prehistoric dog and split from the Gray wolf 42,000 years ago.

When changes in appearance started to show, humans started selective breeding

choosing what parts of the dog they like. If they wanted a dog with long ears

they would breed two dogs with the longest ears and if any pups were born with

small ears they would cull or abandoned them and only keep the dog with the

longest ears put them in a breeding program. This still goes on to day and it』s

the cause of nearly all the health problems in dogs, some dogs like the Prince

Charles Spaniel looks nice but its skull is too small for its brain and causes

the dog to have seizures. since we are changing the dog』s appearance in a

non-natural way compared to how it would evolve in a natural way, if you

release the modern dogs into the wild 90% of the dogs would not be able to

survive in the wild.

Conclusion

Forcing evolution can be the worst thing humans can do to

animals, Nazi Germany tried selective breeding with humans but it was very evil

but if its evil to do on humans why is it seen as something that is ok to do

with animals. since evolution is still going on with everything on the planet

what do you think will change, how do you think the planet will look like and

what do you think humans will be like. One of the most popular theory for human

evolution is that we will combine with technology.

中文翻譯：

狼與人類有著很長的淵源，但是為什麼現代的狗長得並不像狼呢。在俄羅斯曾經花了很長時間進行了一個實驗試圖來揭開真相。這個實驗被稱作「馴化火狐狸計劃」，主旨就是弄明白溫順是否是遺傳特性。實驗中用的狐狸來自毛皮動物養殖場，因此對於火狐狸的供應不會出現短缺。實驗是這樣的，當人們走近籠子里的狐狸時，將手伸向狐狸，如果狐狸表現出侵略性，那麼這隻狐狸就會被殺掉，用以供應皮毛；如果這隻狐狸很溫順且對於人類的手很有興趣，那麼這隻狐狸將會被放在一個安全的地方，繼續讓其繁殖。

因此，培育項目中活下來的狐狸都會是友善的，對於它們的後代也會進行同樣的測驗，表現出兇殘則被淘汰，這個實驗秉持這樣的原則持續不斷地篩選，直至今天。在這個過程中，出現了一些意想不到的情況，那些活下來的狐狸的毛色開始發生了改變，出現的顏色包括紅色、銀色（黑）、銀灰色、雜色、喬治亞白，這也解釋了為什麼狗的外貌相較於今天的狼來說，如此不同。

早期人類也嘗試馴養狼，外出打獵時會讓其跟隨，主要職責就是幫助人類及時發現與跟蹤獵物。由於人類挑選狼，有固定的標準，因此被馴化的狼也會發生潛移默化地變化。已知最早得狗，也就是從狼這一分支脫離出來的品種為藏獒，它被認為是狗的老祖宗，42000年前從灰狼這一類分化而來。