Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 86 A wolf cub, abandoned by his mother in a den near the western Mongolian vil-
lage of Oench, was brought to the village by a young boy. The cub is so cute that he cries out
to be domesticated.
As I emphasized in Chapter 2, natural selection can only produce genetic
changes in populations if there is genetic variation available that the selec-
tion can act on. The same requirement applies to artifi cial selection. If there
were no heritable dif erences among the behaviors of the wild wolf cubs,
then the people of the encampments could have gone on selecting the tam-
est cubs for centuries, but their selection would have had no ef ect. The cubs'
babies would have been as wild as the wolves that still roamed free. Variation
among the genes that contribute to the behavior of the selected animals is
essential if artifi cial selection for domestication is to succeed.
 
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