Lyudmila Trut: Pioneering Geneticist Behind Fox-Dog Transformation Passes Away

Lyudmila Trut, a pioneering Russian geneticist, passed away at 90. She was renowned for her work with Dmitri Belyaev on the domestication of silver foxes, transforming them into dog-like companions through selective breeding for tameness. This groundbreaking experiment, conducted under the guise of fur production during a time when genetics was suppressed in the USSR, demonstrated the genetic basis of domestication and resulted in significant behavioral and physical changes in the foxes. Trut's work is considered one of the most ambitious long-term biological studies.