Domesticated animals look different from their wild counterparts as well. Shorter snouts, curly tails, floppy ears and spotted coats are all traits that tend to pop up in domesticated animals. But until recently, no one had an explanation for this “domestication syndrome.”
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I thought we already knew that it’s a selection of juvenile traits.
There was a Russian experiment done with wild foxes kept in captivity, within a few generations they developed floppier ears, spots and curled tails in correlation with reduced cortisol levels as they became more acclimated to humans.