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

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Dmitry Belyayev has received more than 10,279 page views. His biography is available in 15 different languages on Wikipedia. Dmitry Belyayev is the 475th most popular biologist, the 1,240th most popular biography from Russia and the 13th most popular Russian Biologist.

Memorability Metrics

  • 10k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 51.95

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 15

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 5.41

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 1.60

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Among BIOLOGISTS

Among biologists, Dmitry Belyayev ranks 475 out of 1,097. Before him are Aldo Leopold, Eduard Friedrich Eversmann, Agostino Bassi, Anders Dahl, Alexander Kovalevsky, and Jacques Loeb. After him are Henri Ernest Baillon, Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn, Karl Gegenbaur, Heinrich Anton de Bary, Matthias de l'Obel, and Johan Peter Falk.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1917, Dmitry Belyayev ranks 168. Before him are Suzy Delair, Ivan Bodiul, Imre Németh, Olga Sanfirova, Bertil Nordahl, and Aníbal Paz. After him are Celeste Holm, Justin Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin, M. G. Ramachandran, Lena Horne, Abdullah al-Sallal, and André Waterkeyn. Among people deceased in 1985, Dmitry Belyayev ranks 115. Before him are Sergei Gerasimov, Renato Castellani, Jock Stein, Salvador Espriu, Francesca Bertini, and Iosif Shklovsky. After him are Julia Robinson, Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, René Barjavel, Ernest Nagel, Henry Hansen, and Sanjeev Kumar.

Others Born in 1917

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Others Deceased in 1985

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In Russia

Among people born in Russia, Dmitry Belyayev ranks 1,240 out of 3,761. Before him are Vyacheslav Zaytsev (1952), Eugen Slutsky (1880), Galina Ustvolskaya (1919), Pavel Chichagov (1767), Carl Neumann (1832), and Natalya Lisovskaya (1962). After him are Valentin Gaft (1935), Vladimir Aksyonov (1935), Konstantin Novoselov (1974), Vladimir Petlyakov (1891), Viktor Astafyev (1924), and Vladimir Filatov (1875).

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Among BIOLOGISTS In Russia

Among biologists born in Russia, Dmitry Belyayev ranks 13. Before him are Nikolay Pirogov (1810), Vladimir Demikhov (1916), Nikolai Severtzov (1827), Alexander von Middendorff (1815), Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov (1870), and Kliment Timiryazev (1843). After him are Edwin Klebs (1834), Philipp Johann Ferdinand Schur (1799), Franz Meyen (1804), Fritz Schaudinn (1871), Nikolay Drozdov (1937), and Alexei Fedchenko (1844).

Russian born Biologists

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