10 Tails That Wag the
Modern Dog
Tim Radford in Seattle learns how Fido sprang from a wolf. Within five years
researchers will have completed the evolutionary tree of man's best friend,
from a wolf in eastern Asia about 15,000 years ago to more than 300 breeds
today.
By Guardian Newspapers, 2/13/2004
Within five
years researchers will have completed the evolutionary tree of man's best
friend, from a wolf in eastern Asia about 15,000 years ago to more than 300
breeds today.
The genetic sequence of a dog - a poodle - was completed in 2003. Now a
combination of pedigree data, veterinary expertise, genetics and historical
records could demonstrate the link the chihuahua and border collie, great dane
and German shepherd.
Deborah Lynch of the Canine Studies Institute in Aurora, Ohio, unveiled a
genetic map showing 10 classes of dog which, in the past 2,000 to 3,000 years,
have led to 300 different kinds of modern purebred.
Dogs are an evolutionary puzzle: all domestic dogs belong to one species but
they have evolved a greater variety of shape, size, behaviour and
specialisation than any other animal.
Ms Lynch argued that the use of dogs for specialised purposes began thousands
of years ago. A Mesopotamian image from 3000BC showed a trader walking with a mastiff
and a greyhound, while his wife followed with a Maltese lapdog in a basket.
A now vanished Scots highland terrier was probably the progenitor of all the
terrier varieties. The origins of dogs such as the bull mastiff and Rhodesian
ridgeback were well documented, she said.
Some breeds had been lost, some recreated. Other varieties had uncertain
beginnings: something like a dachshund or bassett hound appeared on ancient
Egyptian artefacts.
But she argued that at least 10 prototype ancestors could be identified: dogs
for hunting in the desert, dogs adapted for cold, or hunting in brush, or for
standing guard, and so on.
"It's a new way of thinking about purebred dogs. For the first time we
have identified progenitor breeds for each type of dog."
Sight hounds, for instance, had a deep chest, long limbs, a sleek head and long
jaw, and would have been used for hunting in the Middle East. From these
evolved the greyhound in 2900BC and the whippet in England only two centuries
ago.
Scent hounds, with a sense of smell 100,000 times more discerning than a
human's, dated from around AD300, and survive as bloodhounds, foxhounds,
dachshunds and so on. "You want an animal that is useful in a temperate
climate where there are trees and grass and you can't see that far. So you have
to hunt by scent."
Working and guard dogs such as the mastiff were thought to have originated in
Tibet in the stone age: the rottweiler emerging in German in AD74, the St
Bernard in Switzerland in 1050 and the bulldog in England in 1600.
Toy and companion dogs probably began with the Maltese in 3000BC - statues of
Maltese dogs were found in the tomb of Rameses II - and led to the pug in 400BC
and the toy poodle in 1700.
Northern breeds - her fifth group - were adapted to the cold. Skeletal remains
of northern elkhounds have been dated at 5000BC. Their descendants tended to
have small ears and thick double coats and eyes that can squint in bright snow:
the chow chow was recorded in 150BC in China and the pomeranian appeared in England in 1800.
Flushing spaniels - with long ears and long muzzles for carrying game - emerged
in Spain in 250BC; water spaniels and retrievers in about AD700. Terriers -
ideal for hunting vermin - emerged early and proliferated in Britain and Europe.
The last group, the herding dogs, may have begun in the Middle East: Canaan dogs accompanied the Israelites 2,200 years ago and could be the ancestor of the
Welsh corgi, the border collie, the old English sheepdog and the German
shepherd.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited