[hchasestevens]

Yes, these are all possible explanations, but the specific symptoms observed - development of spots and smaller cranial capacity - are well documented as common effects of human domestication across a broad range of mammalian species. That the same mechanism is driving the changes observed in these mice would be a simpler explanation than various disparate, piecemeal effects combining to produce them.

[pvaldes]

Domestication, like in the foxes study, needs a small genetic pool to work and a deliberate selection of the sexual reproduction by humans (killing the non-desired ones, mating only animals with desired traits). Nothing of that is happening here.

One of the problems with the article is that does not try to discard those explanations. A simple check to investigate if white spots are linked to sex or age would help. A check for scars in those patches would positively help us to understand what is happenning. It does not mean necessarily harming the mice, they could just rasurate some white patches and take a look.

We are concluding that animals sort of "deliberately increase" their "cuteness" to please humans but this conclusion is not justified. What if aggression is just being increased as response to animals being marked with strange human odour?. This kind of articles should discuss at least some of those alternative explanations.