"Stuff is eaten by dogs, broken by family and friends, sanded down by the wind, frozen by the mountains, lost by the prairie, burnt off by the sun, washed away by the rain. So you are left with dogs, family, friends, sun, rain, wind, prairie and mountains. What more do you want?"
Federico Calboli
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Controversial Origins of the Domestic Dog
Darren Naish has one of his as-usual excellent essays up, dealing with the origins and evolution of dogs. A recommended read on a subject of interest to posters and commenters at this blog.
Absolutely---I'd love to hear Steve's thoughts on this also.
I've always found the wolf-to-dog reasoning a little stiff. There are plenty of canids out there, many of which look and behave more like dogs to my eye, than do wolves. The idea of a separate, more dog-like ancestor to modern dogs is sure compelling as Darren lays it out.
But if you consider what the Russians did with foxes (making, essentially, "dogs" out of them within a dozen or so generations), I don't have much doubt you could turn a wolf into a whippet in a few thousand years or less. Maybe much less.
The main question I had reading Darren's piece was whether it really matters where our dogs came from, originally. I don't mean to be anti-scientific or uncurious, but my feeling is that "dog" is an idea as much as an animal.
If you can make "dogs" of foxes (and I'm willing to bet you could make a fair "whippet" of a fox within a single human lifetime), then is it at all meaningul to name the closest relatives or the immediate ancestor of the dog? In a way, dogs descended from US as much as they did from any once-wild animal.
3 comments:
Commentary from Steve, please!
Absolutely---I'd love to hear Steve's thoughts on this also.
I've always found the wolf-to-dog reasoning a little stiff. There are plenty of canids out there, many of which look and behave more like dogs to my eye, than do wolves. The idea of a separate, more dog-like ancestor to modern dogs is sure compelling as Darren lays it out.
But if you consider what the Russians did with foxes (making, essentially, "dogs" out of them within a dozen or so generations), I don't have much doubt you could turn a wolf into a whippet in a few thousand years or less. Maybe much less.
The main question I had reading Darren's piece was whether it really matters where our dogs came from, originally. I don't mean to be anti-scientific or uncurious, but my feeling is that "dog" is an idea as much as an animal.
If you can make "dogs" of foxes (and I'm willing to bet you could make a fair "whippet" of a fox within a single human lifetime), then is it at all meaningul to name the closest relatives or the immediate ancestor of the dog? In a way, dogs descended from US as much as they did from any once-wild animal.
"From US"-- good one, Matt. But as an evo- wonk I am still interested in the science. I'll have such a post up soon.
Post a Comment