Phoebe's Tails

A scientific study, published a couple weeks ago, dispels the commonly-believed theory that dogs descended from gray wolves.  Research indicates that wolves and dogs likely evolved from some unknown wolf-like ancestor, but they were running on their own evolutionary tracks.

Dogs still originated in a hunter-gather society, making them carnivores at heart. However, something in the dog breeds made them more prone to domestication than wolves.

How Did Researchers Show that Dogs Did Not Evolve From Gray Wolves

The researchers studied the genomes (the part of DNA that contains complete hereditary information) of three gray wolves, an Australian dingo, a basenji and a golden jackal. Each wolf was from a different region, representing the areas where dogs were believed to have originated,

The dingo and basenji were included in the study, because they are from Australia and Africa, respectively, and wolves never extended that far south. This geographic isolation reduces the likelihood of wolves overlapping and mixing with the dingo and basenji. The jackal was, in essence, a wild card.

Research Findings Summarized:

According to Scientific Daily:

“Dogs and wolves evolved from a common ancestor between 9,000 and 34,000 years ago, before humans transitioned to agricultural societies, according to an analysis of modern dog and wolf genomes from areas of the world thought to be centers of dog domestication…