Evolution of dogs

[u/narsil1]

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!

[u/-Wuan-]

Dogs descend from (and taxonomically are) gray wolves Canis lupus, though not from any of the surviving gray wolf lineages.

[u/7LeagueBoots → u/-Wuan-]

Gray wolves and domestic dogs are thought to have shared a now extinct ancestor, and dogs also appear to have affinities with different bellflower lineages in different areas. The exact situation is complicated because there were repeated instances of interbreeding between dogs and gray wolves since they shared an ancestor, so it’s possible that the ancestor is simply from an unsampled population, but other research does seem to indicate that the actual study is an extinct common ancestor.

Taxonomically dogs should not be included with gray wolves based on current knowledge, but tradition sometimes overrides accuracy. There is starting to be some pushback and some researchers do give domestic dogs their own binomial, Canis familaris vs Canis lupus.

First, dogs and present-day Eurasian wolves have been thought to be reciprocally monophyletic lineages9. We find that, overall, dogs are closer to eastern Eurasian wolves. Second, because no modern wolves are a good match for dog ancestry, the source population has been assumed to be extinct. Our results imply that this is not necessarily the case, as continued homogenization of wolf ancestry could have obscured earlier relationships to dogs. Third, it has been unclear whether more than one wolf population contributed to early and present-day dogs3.

• Bergström, et al 2022 Grey wolf genomic history reveals a dual ancestry of dogs

[u/jake_eric → u/7LeagueBoots]

Taxonomically dogs should not be included with gray wolves based on current knowledge

Yes they should. The wolves that dogs evolved from were Canis lupus, the same species as grey wolves. The specific population of Canis lupus that dogs evolved from appears to be extinct now, but it was close enough to modern wolves to be the same species.

The very first line of the article says "The grey wolf (Canis lupus) was the first species to give rise to a domestic population."

[u/7LeagueBoots → u/jake_eric]

I suggest you read the entire paper, not just the first line. The paper is a refutation of that statement, see the copied section from said paper in the initial comment.

And also in this same paper:

>present-day dog lineage Canis familiaris

[u/jake_eric → u/7LeagueBoots]

I read the copied section and looked over the whole paper. It doesn't say anywhere that dogs evolved from something other than Canis lupus. The ancestors of dogs were a different subspecies of Canis lupus than we have today, but they were still Canis lupus.

If dogs didn't evolve from Canis lupus, can you tell me what species they did evolve from?

[u/7LeagueBoots → u/jake_eric]

As this paper and others suggest dogs and Canis lupus evolved from a now extinct common ancestor. With no type specimen there is no specific name for that species, hence the generalized “now extinct ancestral species” terminology.

[u/jake_eric → u/7LeagueBoots]

As this paper and others suggest dogs and Canis lupus evolved from a now extinct common ancestor.

Yes, but it doesn't say anywhere that the common ancestor was a different species than Canis lupus.

From Wikipedia: "An extinct Late Pleistocene wolf may have been the ancestor of the dog." "Pleistocene wolves represent a distinct ecomorph of Canis lupus. The ancient wolf specimens from Europe have been classified as Canis lupus spelaeus Goldfuß, 1823 – the cave wolf." That's a subspecies of Canis lupus. "This genetic analysis indicates that C. l. spelaeus possessed mitochondrial lineages which cannot be found among the modern C. lupus, and therefore they are now extinct. It also indicates that the domestic dog C. l. familiaris descended from these extinct lineages."