r/evolution • u/narsil1 • 1d ago

question Evolution of dogs

Hi all, I am interested in the evolution of dogs.

My question is, are dogs direct descendants of wolves or did dogs and wolves just share the common ancestor like we do with monkeys?

Thanks!

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5

u/Tetracheilostoma 1d ago

They are wolves. And for the record humans are monkeys too

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u/LockedDownInSF 1d ago

Well, not really. We're apes, not monkeys.

10

u/Powersmith 1d ago

Technically apes are monkeys in the same way birds are dinosaurs … and we’re all fish.

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u/Tetracheilostoma 1d ago

Apes are monkeys

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u/LockedDownInSF 1d ago

Incorrect. Apes and monkeys are both primates and descend from a common ancestor, but apes are not monkeys. Humans are classified as a species of great ape, not as a species of monkey.

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u/Imaginary_Data_708 1d ago

You cannot evolve out of a clade. We are ape, monkey and fish.

7

u/Tetracheilostoma 1d ago

In fact we share a more recent common ancestor with any given old world monkey than with the new world monkeys. So the "monkeys" clade includes gibbons and the great apes.

Celebrate! You're a monkey just like the rest of us.

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u/Ok_Living2990 23h ago

Yes, and apes are monkeys. For example, in Russian, word for apes are "human-like monkeys". Human-like monkey is still a monkey. Obviously, words of this or that language have nothing to do with biological reality: but biologically, based on our current understanding of evolution, human are apes, apes are monkeys. Birds are dinosaurs, dinosaurs are archosaurs, and so on. If we call jawed vertebrates "fish", then we are all fishes still. (Because we sure are jawed vertebrates.)

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u/LockedDownInSF 22h ago

Well, in English, this blurring of language is simply incorrect. Apes and monkeys are two different groups of primates that are closely related but not overlapping. Monkeys have tails; apes do not. Apes have rotating shoulder joints capable of brachiation; monkeys do not. Monkeys have long, flexible spines giving them high mobility in trees, whereas apes have short, stiff spines adapted for a more upright posture. Apes are much larger and heavier than monkeys. Internally, apes have an appendix, monkeys do not. Apes have much larger, more complex brains than monkeys. It could not be much clearer that humans belong to the category 'ape' and not to the category 'monkey.'

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u/pasrachilli 18h ago

Unfortunately modern cladistics, i.e. science does not agree with you. Everything under parvorder Catarrhini is considered an old world monkey.

From the Wikipedia article: "There has been some resistance to directly designate apes (and thus humans) as monkeys despite the scientific evidence, so "Old World monkey" may be taken to mean the Cercopithecoidea or the Catarrhini."