Dogs have been man’s best friend for centuries, so it’s no surprise that we’re fascinated by the history of our beloved canine companions. We’ve seen small dogs in our homes and on our streets for as long as we can remember, but have you ever wondered how they came to be? While it may seem counterintuitive, our tiny lap dogs are actually descended from large, powerful wolves. A better understanding of the evolution of dogs can provide us with a fascinating insight into our connection with our furry friends. In this blog post, we’ll be exploring this evolution and how small dogs came from wolves. We’ll look at the various theories and evidence supporting the connection and the implications this has for our relationship with dogs. In addition, we’ll also explore the qualities that make small dogs such a popular choice for pet owners.
Looking at a snorting French bulldog or a prancing Pomeranian it can be hard to grasp how these pint-sized pooches could have possibly descended from wolves, which today routinely exceed 100 pounds and can take down bison.
Now, research published today in Current Biology suggests instead that the genetic fodder for the tiny dog breeds of today was actually lurking in the DNA of ancient wolves that lived more than 50,000 years ago, long before domestication began.
According to Ostrander, it was typical for ancient canids to have two copies of the big allele. However, it was discovered that the small allele was present in the population, albeit at a low frequency. It appears as though nature had this hidden in her back pocket. ”.
The researchers then searched for the backwards variants of the IGF-1 gene across a staggering 1,431 canid genomes. A full 1,156 of those genomes came from modern dogs (Canis familiaris), a single species which encompasses 230 established breeds, 140 indigenous and village dogs, and one dingo (which is generally considered to be a type of dog but that some argue is its own wild species). In addition to all these dogs, the study also examined the genomes of 13 species of wild canids from around the globe and 35 ancient dogs and wolves.
However, until recently, scientists were unable to identify the mutation, or change in the gene’s DNA sequence, at the IGF-1 gene region, which caused smaller dogs to produce less of the growth-promoting protein. In the summer of 2020, more than a decade later and with the aid of contemporary genomic analysis, Jocelyn Plassais, a post-doc in Ostrander’s lab, used the first Covid-19 lockdown to take a fresh look at the IGF-1 gene region in dogs with an unconventional approach: he began reading some of the genetic code backwards.
Greger Larson, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford and co-director of the recently launched multidisciplinary dog domestication project, claims that while the earlier studies are significant, they have flaws. He criticizes the 2009 study for having geographically constrained samples and the 1997 and 2009 studies for only using DNA from contemporary dogs in their analyses. According to Larson, using only contemporary animals as windows into the past won’t help solve the issue. He explains that because people have moved and interbred dogs around the world numerous times, obscuring their genetic heritage, studies of modern dog DNA are insufficiently informative. Any regional identifiers that could have been used to determine their domestication location have long since been lost.
One of our dogs will not take a piece of meat you leave on the table if you tell him “No,” according to Virányi. “But the wolves ignore you. They’ll look you in the eye and grab the meat,” she has encountered their unnerving assertiveness on numerous occasions. And when this occurs, she once more ponders how the wolf ended up as a domestic dog.
About 45,000 years ago, when modern humans first arrived in Europe, they came across the gray wolf and other wolves, including the megafaunal wolf, which hunted mammoths and other large game. Wolves had already established themselves as one of the most resilient and successful species in the canid family by that point, spreading across Eurasia to Japan, the Middle East, and North America. They did not only live in one type of habitat; they also thrived in tundra, steppes, deserts, forests, coastal areas, and the high altitude of the Tibetan Plateau. They also competed for the same prey, including mammoths, deer, aurochs, woolly rhinoceroses, antelopes, and horses, with the recently arrived humans. Despite this competition, one species of wolf, possibly a megafaunal wolf descendant, started to live nearby humans. For many years, scientists agreed that this species was the modern gray wolf (Canis lupus), and that only this canid gave rise to dogs, based on small portions of the genome.
Even though the mystery is difficult to solve, scientists are making progress. In the past few years they have made several breakthroughs. Contrary to popular belief, they can now state with certainty that dogs are not descended from the gray wolf species that is still present across much of the Northern Hemisphere, from Saudi Arabia to Siberia, but rather from an unidentified and extinct wolf. Additionally, they are certain that this domestication event occurred when humans were still hunters and gatherers rather than after they became agriculturalists, as some researchers had suggested.
However, some of the canid skulls do not resemble wolves in every way. According to Mietje Germonpré, a paleontologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels, three in particular stand out. The three unusual skulls “have shorter snouts, broader braincases, and crowded teeth” in comparison to the wolf skulls discovered at Predmost, she notes.
The domestication of the gray wolf produced every domestic dog breed that is known to man today in all of its varied forms. Dogs eventually became more diverse as humans gradually selected for the qualities they wanted in their dogs, such as herding prowess, specific temperaments, and size.
Older remains have been discovered at sites in Belgium, Germany, and Western Russia that date to between 13,000 and 31,000 years ago, but those remains belonged to larger dogs.
Small size may have been preferable in agricultural societies that were more closely populated, where dogs may have lived partially indoors or in small outdoor spaces, according to Gray.
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Gray told LiveScience that while the evidence suggests that small dogs originated in the Middle East, the precise sequence of dog domestication is “still a little bit up in the air.”
FAQ
How were wolves bred into small dogs?
The science of small dogs According to evidence, domestication of four-legged animals by our dog-loving ancestors began in the Middle East 12,000 years ago. These dogs descend from the smaller gray wolves of the Middle East.
How did we get Chihuahuas from wolves?
Researchers now assert that the genetic mutation first appeared in wolves before they were domesticated. It may be difficult to believe that dogs like fluffy Pomeranians or vivacious Chihuahuas really are descended from wolves based solely on appearances.
How did we get dogs from wolves?
Wolves probably accidentally led early hunter-gatherers into domestication when they started following them and eating their leftovers. According to one theory, docile wolves may have been given extra food scraps so they could survive and pass on their genes. Eventually, these friendly wolves evolved into dogs.
Did all dogs descend from wolves?
Although this domestication may have occurred twice, giving rise to groups of dogs descended from two distinct common ancestors, all modern dogs are descended from wolves.