Do dogs originate from wolves?
When you look at your naturally cute dog, have you ever thought that it is probably already a wolf, a kind of dog with long pointed teeth? A bloodthirsty creature with sharp teeth? Scientists have always been very curious about the origin of dogs, and various theories are not surprising. Recently, some people have proposed that dogs probably originated from wolves!
American and European researchers analyzed 10 wolf fossils and 8 wolves from 1,000 to 36,000 years ago Mitochondrial DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) of dog fossils. Most of these fossils come from Europe, and others come from the United States and Argentina. Comparing these fossils with 77 dogs, 49 giant wolves, and 4 forest wolves that lived in ancient times, it was found that the genetic sequence of modern dogs is most consistent with wolves and dogs living in Pangea Europe, and with the exception of wolves and dogs living in Europe or today. The wolf is more indifferent.
The researchers concluded that the ancestors of dogs may be wolves that once lived in Europe but have become extinct. . Study leader Robert Wayne, professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said: "It is inevitable that the oldest domesticated dogs come from Europe."
Due to long experience, even the bearded Darwin felt that the origin of dogs was a big problem. Based on such rich dog breeds, sages such as Darwin believed that dogs did not originate from a single animal, but should have originated from multiple lines. Naturally, this idea has been subject to intense challenge, as people have discovered that some uniform characteristics are shared by almost all dog breeds, such as the upward and outward curling tail that is unique among all canines - which seems to indicate that Dogs have a common ancestor. They were domesticated in a certain place and then dispersed to other places in the world. Now the question is, who did this? How many years have dogs been domesticated?
At present, molecular biology is providing more and more evidence. The main basis for scientists to trace the origin is mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome DNA. forwardThe latter is maternally inherited, that is, it can only be passed from mother to offspring. In other words, we can trace the origin of the mother through mitochondrial DNA; The DNA sequence unique to the Y chromosome (or perhaps not cognate with the X chromosome The sequence) is inherited from the paternal line and can only be transmitted from father to son. It can be used as a symbol of the spread of surnames. The same technique can also be used to trace the origins of dogs, and the idea that dogs are mainly descended from wolves has been widely accepted.
Leave aside genes, even from an appearance point of view, dogs and wolves are very similar, such as sleds The Three Silly Huskies (certain introduction), some people really treat it as a wolf.
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