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Yes, wolves and dogs are a separate species as far as I know. I think the first kinds of "domesticated" dogs were probably a part of the wolf family. They might not have been like wolves we see today but probably very similar. It's not hard to see how dogs could have become domesticated. Wolves can be domesticated as well. I know when I lived in Arkansas people had pet wolves. If the wolf is born with humans and surrounded by humans it can take on characteristics not unlike those of a domesticated dog. Although probably slightly more aggressive, the training behavior is the same. A reward system for the good, and not admonishment, but ignoring for the bad. Wolves and dogs are pack animals. The alpha male ALWAYS eats first and shows dominance over the rest of the pack. If you ever have a male dog with problems it is because he sees himself as the Alpha male because you haven't shown your dominance over him. I'm telling you... watch the Dog Whisperer some time. It is no different with domestic dogs than wild dogs or wolves. They are all pack animals and one came from the other.
I thought so. I may be wrong, but I thought they would breed across species. I'm not asking that sarcastically, I'm actually trying to remember. Is that correct?
Sure, there can. They can also produce viable offspring. However, the concept of reproductive isolation is not limited to simply the production of viable offspring. The isolation can be behavioral as well as biological. One idea behind sympatric speciation relies upon the supposition of behavioral reproductive isolation brought on by selective mating - interestingly which is overwhelming female "choice".
The divergence between the wolf and dog lineage is fairly recent. The longer the lineages continue the more difference will accrue and eventually there will be no ability to interbreed and produce viable offspring - the accumulated differences will be too great. That is assuming that the isolation continues on a whole and a massive amount of population intermixing does not occur. For instance - the variation we see in human races can be seen due to regional variation. Were the geographic isolation of these different sub-populations to continue over a long enough timeframe, we could have "seen" Homo sapiens experience a speciation event (albeit these timeframes are very long periods of time - hundreds of thousands of years). This did not happen and won't because we experienced gene flow within the groups. Now we can so readily intermix amongst the sub-populations that we have successfully derailed the major criteria for allopatric speciation.
Interestingly, and salient to the topic of speciation, it has been shown that our split from the chimpanzee lineage several million years ago (sometime between 5 and 7 million years ago) was rather "messy" with much divergence and then hybridization and eventually a final isolation and complete split.
Scientists are actually conflicted over this....some say there are enough differences between the two to keep them in separate species classes and some say that dogs should be a subspecies of wolves. Genetically you can't tell a wolf from a dog (they share 99.8% of the same genes) the differences would seem to be more attributed to nurture than nature.
There was a very good program about the evolution of dogs from wolves recently on one of the educational channels. Dogs evolved only fifteen thousand years ago and are now one of the most varied species on the planet. What is so interesting is how quickly the evolution occured. Researchers believe that wolves would approach areas where people would throw out their trash and look for food. Certain wolves that didn't run away when people approached had certain genetic characteristics and at some point wolves that had that in common began to mate and people began to tame them. Their physical appearance and behavior changed dramatically and now we have breeds of dogs that are only a couple hundred years old. Try to see this program, I'm sure they'll show it again, it was very informative.
Their physical appearance and behavior changed dramatically and now we have breeds of dogs that are only a couple hundred years old. Try to see this program, I'm sure they'll show it again, it was very informative.
hehehe. I get such a kick out of these debates. LOL. Montanaguy, they are ALL STILL dogs!
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