Athena Review Image Archive ™
Canis familiaris and Canis lupus skulls
Skulls of the domestic dog (top) and Gray Wolf (bottom) (rfter)
Canidae is the Latin term for the dog family, from canis,
“dog”. The canidae are divided into two tribes, canini (“dog-like”) and
vulpini (“fox-like”). Canini includes all wolves and domesticated dogs,
including the Australian dingo, as well as coyotes (Canis latrans), jackals (Canis aureus, the golden jackal, and two other species), and a number of other genera.
Canis familiaris
is the domestic dog. Both archaeological finds and recent genetic
studies indicate that dogs were domesticated from gray wolves (Canis lupus)
by about 15,000 years ago. This figure, comparing skulls of a Labrador
and a Gray Wolf, shows that the latter skull is longer with larger
teeth. Domestication has thus shortened the skull and reduced the size
of teeth.
Canis lupus,
the gray wolf, evolved during the Pleistocene period by about 1 mya. It
is recognized as the direct ancestor of all breeds of domestic dogs,
the earliest of whom were simply tamed gray wolves. In
some classifications of canines, dogs are actually listed as a
tame subspecies, Canis lupus familiaris (Wang and Tedford 2008).
Based
on recent genetic and behavioral studies of dogs, however, the
domestication process and related human-friendly behavior became
genetically inherited in dogs, and is not present in adult wolves, even
though some juvenile wolves can be tamed.
References
Wang, X. and R.H. Tedford. 2008 Dogs: Their Evolution. Columbia Univesity Press.
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