Wolves In Dogs’ Clothing? Not According To Science
There is often a lot of speculation that dogs are genetically just nice wolves. It turns out this is far from the case. As a matter of fact, a 2020 published study on ancient dog origins found that dogs are not related to wolves at all. One study, published in August 2020 (1) used modern genomic tools to find out how closely dogs and wolves were related. It was discovered that dogs are not genetically related to the modern wolf any more than humans are related to monkeys. Furthermore, it was discovered that both species display something called reciprocal monophyly after scientists studied genes of both dogs and wolves.
What is reciprocal Monophyly?
Reciprocal monophyly means that both the domestic dog and the grey wolf share a recent common ancestor but are two separate taxonomic groups. The domestic dog is not genetically similar to any living wolf population at all. Dogs compare to wolves the same way that chickens compare to turtles or monkeys compare to humans.
Ancient Ancestry of Dogs
Genetic studies have proven that the domestic dog is not genetically similar to any living wolf population, and the wild ancestor of the dog is extinct. It is thought that a late Late Pleistocene wolf (Megafaunal Wolf) might be the dog’s earliest ancestor (1), but this has yet to be proven through genetic studies (2) .
Back in 2020, a literature review about the domestication of dogs found that modern dogs aren’t descended from the same Canis (dog family) lineage as modern wolves. But some dogs are so similar in appearance to wolves, that there has to be some recent genetic relationship, right?
What About Dogs That Look Wolf Like?
Well, the study suggests that the similarities in appearance of some domestic dogs to the modern wolf might be due to something else. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these physical similarities are due to species interbreeding between Pleistocene-era domestic dog species and a wolf species from that era. that was similar in size to a village dog. Other monophyletic species that were the result of interbreeding with relatively modern wolves include jackals and foxes.
Conclusion
Even when all scientific evidence points to the contrary, there are still many dog trainers, breeders, rescues, and even a few small animal veterinarians who still refer to dogs as direct descendants of modern era wolves. They refer to long disproven wolf pack hierarchy when they refer to dogs as “alpha”, “beta”, dominant, submissive, etc. Most of these dog trainers (or dog whisperers) then use this bafflegab as an excuse to use brutal dog training methods on an animal that only wants to do whatever it takes to get access to things it wants.
These things can include food, water, shelter, interaction, and a belly scratch. They don’t include wanting to be a pack leader or dominating humans. There is a good reason that dog bite statistics have skyrocketed since the 1960s when people started pretending dogs were really wolves that were trying to dominate them. Nothing could be further from the truth about animals that have evolved for eons to become our canine partners. It’s time for people to give up these ridiculous notions.
Sources
1)Frantz, Laurent A. F.; Bradley, Daniel G.; Larson, Greger; Orlando, Ludovic (2020). “Animal domestication in the era of ancient genomics”. Nature Reviews Genetics. 21 (8): 449–460. doi:10.1038/s41576-020-0225-0. PMID 32265525. S2CID 214809393.
2) Thalmann, Olaf; Perri, Angela R. (2018). “Paleogenomic Inferences of Dog Domestication”. In Lindqvist, C.; Rajora, O. (eds.). Paleogenomics. Population Genomics. Springer, Cham. pp. 273–306. doi:10.1007/13836_2018_27. ISBN978-3-030-04752-8
