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Klaralven

(7,510 posts)
Thu Oct 21, 2021, 08:25 PM Oct 2021

Mysterious, extinct Japanese wolf may hold clues to origins of dogs

If you were walking through a dark forest in ancient Japan, you might hope to run into an okuri-ōkami, a wolf that would escort you safely to your destination. This creature of folklore may be based on the Japanese wolf, a border collie–size animal with short legs and stubby ears that lived in Japan for thousands of years until humans wiped it out in the early 20th century. Now, scientists studying ancient DNA from this wolf’s bones say they may have solved the long-standing mystery of where it came from: a vanished population of gray wolves in East Asia that also gave rise to modern dogs.

“It’s a very meticulous study,” says Peter Savolainen, a geneticist at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm who was not involved. The research, he says, adds evidence to the idea that dogs arose in East Asia, as he and other researchers suspect, rather than in Europe or the Middle East, as some experts have proposed.

All of today’s dogs likely descend from a single population of gray wolves. But exactly where and when those wolves lived has long been a source of contentious debate. Part of the problem is that although the species persists, that original population has likely vanished, wiping out genetic clues about doggy origins.

Enter the Japanese wolf (Canis lupus hodophilax). Described by some as one of the greatest mysteries in the history of Japanese zoology, the animal’s origins are unclear, as is the route it took to reach Japan. A genetic analysis of remains from a single Japanese wolf published earlier this year found it was closely related to a lineage of Siberian wolves, long thought extinct. Recent evidence also suggests dogs may have arisen in Siberia. Might Japanese wolves and dogs share more than just geography?


https://www.science.org/content/article/mysterious-extinct-japanese-wolf-may-hold-clues-origins-dogs

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Mysterious, extinct Japanese wolf may hold clues to origins of dogs (Original Post) Klaralven Oct 2021 OP
an article I read earlier in the week stopdiggin Oct 2021 #1
I'm not telling the resident Maltese JustAnotherGen Oct 2021 #2
Thanks! The more-similar DNA to dogs... Buckeye_Democrat Oct 2021 #3

stopdiggin

(11,095 posts)
1. an article I read earlier in the week
Thu Oct 21, 2021, 09:03 PM
Oct 2021

said this was the closest DNA match to modern dogs ...
(so - more so than Gray wolves themselves? that's - surprising.)

JustAnotherGen

(31,688 posts)
2. I'm not telling the resident Maltese
Thu Oct 21, 2021, 11:04 PM
Oct 2021

That he literally got the "short" end of the evolution stick.

That wolf is cool to look at though.

Buckeye_Democrat

(14,848 posts)
3. Thanks! The more-similar DNA to dogs...
Thu Oct 21, 2021, 11:17 PM
Oct 2021

... is very compelling.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if dogs descended from various wolves, though.

Silver foxes in Russia became VERY dog-like after being selected for tameness, and it didn't take long for that transformation to occur either. It wasn't just a change in fox behavior -- barking, beckoned by their names, etc. -- but their appearance too -- curled tails, floppy ears, variations in fur color and such.

And foxes and wolves aren't even in the same species, of course.

Silver fox experiment:





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