I am currently reading Richard Dawkins\'s book \'The Greatest Show On Earth: The
ID: 30787 • Letter: I
Question
I am currently reading Richard Dawkins's book 'The Greatest Show On Earth: The proof for evolution' and in the second chapter he talks very much about the evolution of dogs.
He says centuries ago there was only such dog-like creature as the wolf, but in a matter centuries the wolf has evolved into the many breeds of dog we have through artificial selection conducted by man.
This to me seemed very peculiar and quite frankly untrue, and I may be getting the wrong end of the stick and he is in fact being analogous, although I'm pretty sure he's not.
So, did wolves evolve into the many breeds of dog we have through artificial selection conducted by man?
If so, how many centuries did this take?
Explanation / Answer
I just wanted to add that although we are pretty confident that domestication of wolves created domestic dogs in pretty short order. In addition to the fact that they can still interbreed and the taxonomical resemblence of dogs to wolves and finally the genome sequence, probably the most awesome evidence is the domestication of the silver fox.
Russian biologists at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics (ICG) in Novosibirsk, Russia in 1959 started with 130 foxes. Even though they can be bred in captivity and they are close to dogs, they had never been domesticated. By selecting the animals with the least aversion to human contact over 10 generations, they were able to breed foxes that were very much like domestic dogs. They follow humans around, enjoy contact with humans, and generally act friendly. In addition they also bred the most averse animals to human each generation as a control (sure enough these animals would rather nip your fingers off before letting you rub their belly!) .Ten generations of animals ended up being less than 20 years.
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