标题: Differences and Similarities Between Modern-Day Dog and Wolf [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 1-20-2016 12:45 标题: Differences and Similarities Between Modern-Day Dog and Wolf James Gorman, The Dog's Tale; Researchers worldwide are delving into the murky roots of man's sometimes best friend. New York Times, Jan 19, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/1 ... dogs-come-from.html
Quote:
(a) "Wolves mate for the long haul and wolf dads help with the young, while dogs are completely promiscuous and the males pay no attention to their offspring. Still, dogs and wolves interbreed easily and some scientists are not convinced that the two are even different species, a skepticism that reflects broader debates in science about how to define a species
(b) "One reason for the conflicting theories [about where dog domestication occurred and when], according to Greger Larson, a biologist in the archaeology department at the University of Oxford, is that dog genetics are a mess. In an interview at his office here in November, he noted that most dog breeds were invented in the 19th century during a period of dog obsession that he called 'the giant whirlwind blender of the European crazy Victorian dog-breeding frenzy.'
"That blender, as well as random breeding by dogs themselves, and interbreeding with wolves at different times over at least the last 15,000 years, created a 'tomato soup' of dog genetics, for which the ingredients are very hard to identify, Dr. Larson said.
"The way to find the recipe, Dr Larson is convinced, is to create a large database of ancient [dog] DNA
Note:
(a) Both dog and grey wolf have 39 pairs of chromosomes (38 pairs autosomal and 1 pair sexual). Human has 23 pairs.
(b) There is no need to read the rest, because the establishment of a database of ancient dogs is in the infancy, spearheaded by Dr Larson.