BIOLOGIST

Dmitry Belyayev

1917 - 1985

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Dmitry Konstantinovich Belyayev (Russian: Дми́трий Константи́нович Беля́ев; 17 July 1917 – 14 November 1985) was a Soviet geneticist and academician who served as director of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics (IC&G) of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, from 1959 to 1985. His decades-long effort to breed domesticated silver foxes was described by The New York Times as “arguably the most extraordinary breeding experiment ever conducted.” A 2010 article in Scientific American stated that Belyayev “may be the man most responsible for our understanding of the process by which wolves were domesticated into our canine companions.” Beginning in the 1950s, in order to uncover the genetic basis of the distinctive behavioral and physiological attributes of domesticated animals, Belyayev and his team spent decades breeding the silver fox (Vulpes vulpes) and selecting for reproduction only those individuals in each generation that showed the least fear of humans. After several generations of controlled breeding, a majority of the silver foxes no longer showed any fear of humans and often wagged their tails and licked their human caretakers to show affection. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Dmitry Belyayev is the 505th most popular biologist (down from 475th in 2019), the 1,070th most popular biography from Russia (up from 1,240th in 2019) and the 14th most popular Russian Biologist.

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Among BIOLOGISTS

Among biologists, Dmitry Belyayev ranks 505 out of 1,097. Before him are Guillaume Rondelet, Johann Hedwig, Paul Friedrich August Ascherson, Achille Richard, William Hudson, and Alphonse Milne-Edwards. After him are Pehr Kalm, Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle, Christian von Steven, Robert H. MacArthur, Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn, and Carl Axel Magnus Lindman.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1917, Dmitry Belyayev ranks 155. Before him are Justin Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin, Infanta Alicia, Duchess of Calabria, Imre Németh, Leopoldo Trieste, El Santo, and Heinrich Ehrler. After him are Adolfo Consolini, Aníbal Paz, Kerim Kerimov, Robert Anderson, Victor Marijnen, and Caspar Weinberger. Among people deceased in 1985, Dmitry Belyayev ranks 112. Before him are Kenny Clarke, William Stevenson, Ernest Nagel, Susanne Langer, Iosif Shklovsky, and Georgia Hale. After him are Paul Castellano, Oreco, Benjamin Markarian, Robert Surtees, Julia Robinson, and Omayra Sánchez.

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Others Deceased in 1985

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In Russia

Among people born in Russia, Dmitry Belyayev ranks 1,070 out of 3,761. Before him are Alexander Gomelsky (1928), Pavel Dybenko (1889), Mikhail Kovalyov (1897), Max Vasmer (1886), Yelena Isinbayeva (1982), and Vitaly Vorotnikov (1926). After him are Maksim Purkayev (1894), Carl Jaenisch (1813), Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova (1878), Evgeny Kissin (1971), Sergei Shchukin (1854), and Issa Pliyev (1903).

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Among BIOLOGISTS In Russia

Among biologists born in Russia, Dmitry Belyayev ranks 14. Before him are Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov (1870), Alexander von Middendorff (1815), Nikolai Severtzov (1827), Edwin Klebs (1834), Philipp Johann Ferdinand Schur (1799), and Vladimir Demikhov (1916). After him are Franz Meyen (1804), Kliment Timiryazev (1843), Fritz Schaudinn (1871), Victor Motschulsky (1810), Johann Friedrich Adam (1780), and Alexei Fedchenko (1844).

Russian born Biologists

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