Did Dogs Descend From Wolves? - Page 1

Newest study on the ancestry of dogs poses new questions about their origin.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/17/dogs-wolf-ancestors-domestication_n_4616796.html

 

The dogs alive today descended from dogs.  At least all of mine did as I was there at birth and there was no wolf in the room.  The University of Chicago could be right and all of the other research is wrong but I doubt it .. Most research (99%) says that the closest living ancestor of the dog is the grey wolf.  Might there have been another wolf subspecies that died out or was incorporated into present day grey wolves or dogs .. yep!!  We now know the Neaderthals did not go extinct exactly (as we were once taught) but were simply involved in a hostile takeover by Homo Sapiens .. the Neaderthal DNA lives on in modern day humans.  The Neaderthal's couldn't beat the Homo Sapiens so they were forced to join us.  It is also possible that the grey wolf and the dog simply branched with one group adapting to living close to humans (dogs) and another group staying as far away as possible (the smart ones and the grey wolf of today).

Gives more credence to Ray Coppinger's ideas.

What difference does it make? They interbreed readily with resulting fertile offspring, so obviously dogs and wolves are related more closely than horses and donkeys are. My opinion is that they are just different breeds of the same species.

I'm pretty sure the dog and the wolf diverged about 50 million years ago  ... the fossil record shows the first wolf with a jute sleeve in his mouth about that time period.  It was also about this time period that the first fossil of a wolf wearing a bandana was dated to.  

Having personally done some academic field ethology with primates and then later taking the time to casually observe Afican Wild Dogs, using the same skillsets, I have always felt that domestic dogs have a lot more in common with African Wild dogs than Wolves.  To me, this means that ancient man most likely, FIRST, domesticated something from the African Plains and not something from European Forests, as a hunting mate.  Now that doesn't mean that wolves, coyotes and foxes were NEVER bred to domesticated dogs by anicent man from time to time, just that the base canine, FIRST domesticated, was not a wolf.

African Wild dogs scientific name is, Lycaon Pictus, the species name being Pictus and the Genus name being Lycaon.  My overall thought is that modern domestic dogs closest wild ancestor is some extinct Lycaon, not yet identified.  As far as I know, there are only two identified Lycaon Canids, one being the living and endangered African Wild dog and the other a long extinct species, both not surprisingly, from Africa.  I assume ancient man would have run into Lycaons first, long before they ever saw a Canis, assuming of course that Africa is in fact the "cradle of humankind", put forth almost universally by academics.

Here are some simple overview articles on wikipedia, not to be taken as gospel, describing what Lycaons are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycaon_%28genus%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycaon_pictus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycaon_sekowei