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Wolf -> Dog evolution

One of my favorite Gary Larsen cartoons shows these wolves watching a bunch of cavemen around a fire with a dopey looking dog hanging out with them.
One wolf says to another, "Look, it's Bob! He's been domesticated, I tell you!"
Too bad I can't locate it to post.
 
Rolfe said:
And that, my friends, is a highly interesting observation! Little dogs get away with behaviour which would be a euthanasia offence in a big dog. So if the wolf behaviour is preserved anywhere in the dog genome, it's in the terriers and the miniatures.

Rolfe.
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I would definitely second that. I've been taking care of my mother's 12 lb poodle since she went into the hospital back in June, and I'd swear he's part flying-squirrel. He plays very rough, and if he was even twice his own size he'd be terrifying.

(BTW, his name is Wolfe. My dad was a classical pianist, and the dog is named after Mozart. 'Cuz, y'know, he's the pee-inist.)

(ETA) Pick up Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf. A fantastic book. Includes a recipe for fieldmouse.

(ETA-2) If you can't find it, PM me and I'll send a copy out to anyone who asks, on my dime!
 
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Rolfe said:
That page was a great read, thanks!

Rolfe.
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:blush: I'm glad that someone with "credentials" liked it;). Some of it was a bit over my head. I don’t know corticosteroids from melanoblasts so I had to take a lot of it on faith. At least I have new things to blame when one of my floppy eared mutts gets an ear infection.

This experiment fundamentally changed the way I look at evolution. The fact that physiological traits such as floppy ears and new coloration patterns can arise from seemingly unrelated selection pressure is just bizarre. It may explain some seemingly nonsensical features in nature. There doesn’t always have to be straight forward reason for things like this:
blueboobie320.jpg

It may be that female boobies find blue feet sexy. It could also be the result of some hormonal change that helps them hunt better. It’s fascinating in any case.
 
Darwin's observation on floppy ears, (IIRC) was that in the wild, an animal needs to be alert. A domesticated animal is more sheltered. As a result, the muscles that "perk" the ears fell into disuse.
Now I don't even know if ears are stiffened by muscle or by cartilage, but there's no denying humans seem to find floppy eared animals "cute".
 
Euromutt said:
If we have to go into an enclosure (which we try to avoid if at all possible, but in summer, you gotta clean up the scat at least once a week), the wolves will generally stay as far away from us as possible, even though they know who we are, and recognize us as the people who bring them food.
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Hey Euro. Just a thought about the wolves. They might be staying away from you because they know that it would be easy to kill you and that you must be aware that it would be easy to kill you, so, they don't want to scare you or hurt your feelings by getting near you. After all, you bring in food, and take away poop!
 
Soapy Sam said:
Darwin's observation on floppy ears, (IIRC) was that in the wild, an animal needs to be alert. A domesticated animal is more sheltered. As a result, the muscles that "perk" the ears fell into disuse.
Now I don't even know if ears are stiffened by muscle or by cartilage, but there's no denying humans seem to find floppy eared animals "cute".
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The fox experiment blows these theories out of the water for foxes at least. The breeders were very specific about what they were selecting for. Tameness was the only criteria.

I think what is critical here is that the floppy ears themselves did not convey any advantage or disadvantage in breeding success. They were a side effect of internal chemical changes relating to tameness. In this case connecting the dots between the feature and the selection pressure that caused it is a long a twisted path. This opened my eyes to the idea that there may be many such long and twisted paths in nature and evolution is even more complicated that I thought it was. A simple question such as “why are the boobies feet blue?” may have a terribly difficult answer that seems nonsensical on the surface. Such answers can be difficult to obtain even in tightly controlled circumstances.
 
Dogs and wolves are genetically identical but dogs did not evolve from wolves; they came from African wild dogs; which are also genetically identical to wolves.
Perhaps it would more accurate to say that dogs and wolves have common ancestor.
But the modern domesticated canine was breed from the A wild dog.
The A wild dog already had (has) most of the behavioral traits that doggies have (puppy behavior that lasts their whole life)
The whole “my dog is part wolf” thing, is a kind of dog lover WOO WOO
 
kedo1981 said:
Dogs and wolves are genetically identical but dogs did not evolve from wolves; they came from African wild dogs; which are also genetically identical to wolves.
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If you mean the African Wild Dog Lycaon pictus, I think you have incorrect information. You might want to check your source (and its date).

http://www.idir.net/~wolf2dog/wayne2.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16213754&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum
 
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Yer right, pictus ain’t the one I’m talking about (though it is properly named African wild dog “painted wolf”)
The one I’m thinking of is more like a larger version of the Besinji
 
kedo - To one way of thinking , your initial statement- "Dogs and wolves are genetically identical but dogs did not evolve from wolves; " is simultaneously tautologous, true , false and meaningless, which I find rather impressive for a one liner.
If genetically identical, they should be the same species-(Though in practice there are other exceptions to that rule, as species may be defined by local characteristics or behaviour).

It's true, because dogs by one argument have not evolved from wolves, but been bred from them. It's a tautology because if genetically identical there has clearly been no evolution at all and it's false, because it's false.
All of which suggests to me it is pretty meaningless because you have acquired a false datum somewhere. Like flume, I'm intrigued to know your source.

I have watched the African Wild "Dogs" flume refers to in the wild. They are a very different breed of...dog... from either Canis lupus or Canis familiaris - and frankly , quite the scariest animals I was ever around.

Having watched a wild wolf just a few days ago, I am in no doubt that it is either a very close cousin of the domestic dog or the most astonishing example of convergent evolution.
Obviously both dogs and wolves have a shared common ancestor and at some point further back in time both share an ancestor with African dogs of all types- almost certainly in Africa. Could that be what you have read about?
See if you can dig up the reference.
 
Well it appears that the DNA evidence proves me wrong


“The domestic dog is an extremely close relative of the gray wolf, differing from it by at most 0.2% of mtDNA sequence.
In comparrison, the gray wolf differs from its closest wild relative, the coyote, by about 4% of mitochondrial DNA sequence. Therefore, the molecular genetic evidence does not support theories that domestic dogs arose from jackal ancestors. Dogs are gray wolves, despite their diversity in size and proportion; the wide variation in their adult morphology probably results from simple changes in developmental rate and timing. “

http://www.kc.net/~wolf2dog/wayne2.htm

However I don’t feel too bad considering the company I’m in

“Darwin suggested that wolves, coyotes, and jackals -- all of which can interbreed and produce fertile offspring-- may all have played a role, producing a complex dog ancestry that would be impossible to unravel. In the 1950s, Nobel Prize-winning behaviorist Konrad Lorenz suggested some dog breeds derive from jackals, others from wolves.”

http://www.txtwriter.com/Onscience/Articles/familydog.html
 
Soapy Sam said:
Darwin's observation on floppy ears, (IIRC) was that in the wild, an animal needs to be alert. A domesticated animal is more sheltered. As a result, the muscles that "perk" the ears fell into disuse.
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Well, remember that Darwin didn't know about genetics. To a modern ear, that statement sounds rather Lamarckian.
Soapy Sam said:
Now I don't even know if ears are stiffened by muscle or by cartilage, but there's no denying humans seem to find floppy eared animals "cute".
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[rant alert]
Except when they decide to crop the ears of puppies so that what should naturally be floppy stands pricked and upright....
[/rant]

Rolfe.

Rolfe.
 
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Hmmm- I wouldn't say Lamarckian. He wasn't implying the floppiness was inherited, simply that the muscles atrophied with disuse and in pups were never used in the first place, so the habit was never acquired. I'd have to reread the original passage. The man was on the money so often I always check before I doubt him.

I met a dog near Aktau a year or so ago who had no ears. A big, friendly scrounger. Out of work sheepdog. I named him "Lugless Douglas". ("Dug" for short.) It seems it's common here with sheepdogs, the rationale being that it stops other dogs, or wolves, grabbing them by the lugs .
I hadn't realised dogs outside Glasgow even knew about head butting.

He was a handsome fellow anyway, but I'd rather he had both ears.
 
Wow. I had no idea we had such enthusiastic ornithologists here. So do you guys prefer blue, red or masked?

Sorry Captain Kirk fans, there is no green.
 
Ohmer said:
Wow. I had no idea we had such enthusiastic ornithologists here. So do you guys prefer blue, red or masked?

Sorry Captain Kirk fans, there is no green.
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Yeah I like them all, brown, masked, red, blue just as long as they aren't silicone.
 
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