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A golden jackal (Canis anthus) from Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. Based on genomic results, the researchers suggest this animal be referred to as the African golden wolf, which is distinct from the Eurasian golden jackal (Canis aureus). Credit: D. Gordon E. Robertson ======================================================================================================================= Despite their remarkably similar appearance, the "golden jackals" of East Africa and Eurasia are actually two entirely different species. The discovery, based on DNA evidence and reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on July 30, increases the overall biodiversity of the Canidae—the group including dogs, wolves, foxes, and jackals—from 35 living species to 36. "This...

The genetic heritage of New Zealand's first dog, the now extinct kuri, is being unravelled by University of Otago scientists using state-of-the-art ancient DNA analysis. University of Otago PhD student Karen Greig has sequenced the complete, or near complete, mitochondrial genomes of 14 kuri represented by bones recovered from Wairau Bar, one on New Zealand's earliest and most important archaeological sites. Kuri were smallish dogs about the size of cocker spaniels and were brought to New Zealand from East Polynesia in the colonising canoes that arrived in the early fourteenth century AD. They were the only domesticated animal to be...

The irresistible gaze of "puppy-dog eyes" has roots in thousands of years of human evolution alongside domesticated dogs, says anthropologist Robert Losey. Anyone who owns a dog is familiar with the "gaze" -- that hypnotic, imploring stare that demands reciprocation. It can seem to hold a world of mystery and longing, or just pure bafflement at what makes humans tick. It turns out that the look of mutual recognition between human and dog reflects thousands of years of evolution, a bond programmed into our very body chemistry. Last spring a research team in Japan discovered that both species release a...

The geology of the site, as well as pollen and algae finds, suggest that the hunter-gatherers encountered the mastodon next to a small pond that both humans and animals used as a water source, the researchers believe. Waters said that the prehistoric "people knew how to find game, fresh water and materials for making tools. These people were well adapted to this environment. The site is a slam-dunk pre-Clovis site with unequivocal artifacts, clear stratigraphy and thorough dating." Another research team previously excavated the site and found what they believed were dog remains, so dogs "would most likely have been...

After living alongside humans for thousands of years, it would be nice to think that a bit of our mental agility has rubbed off on dogs. However, it seems that domestic dogs are actually less intellectually capable than the wild relatives they were bred from. Animal psychologists have found that wolves are able to count far better than domestic dogs - and it's because dogs have become used to relying on us to help them.

Humans may have domesticated dogs two separate times, taming wolves both in Europe and Asia thousands of years ago, according to new research. A major international research project may have cleared some of the controversy surrounding the origins of man's best friend, which has until now remained a mystery with two primary hypotheses. The first holds that humans domesticated dogs for the first time in Europe more than 15,000 years ago.

They may be man's best friend, but the question of where domestic dogs originated has long remained a mystery. Some argue that humans first domesticated wolves in Europe, while others claim this happened in Central Asia. Now, a new paper suggests that both these claims may be right, and that dogs were domesticated not once, but twice.

Before humans milked cows, herded goats or raised hogs, before they invented agriculture, or written language, before they had permanent homes, and most certainly before they had cats, they had dogs. Or dogs had them, depending on how you view the human-canine arrangement. But scientists are still debating exactly when and where the ancient bond originated. And a large new study being run out of the University of Oxford here, with collaborators around the world, may soon provide some answers.

Man's best friend came about after generations of wolves scavenged alongside humans more than 33,000 years ago in south east Asia, according to new research. Dogs became self-domesticated as they slowly evolved from wolves who joined humans in the hunt, according to the first study of dog genomes. And it shows that the first domesticated dogs came about 33,000 years ago and migrated to Europe, rather than descending from domesticated European wolves 10,000 years ago as had previously been thought.

Dogs Don't Remember: Episodic Memory May Distinguish Humans Dogs are wonderful creatures. Our dogs recognize me and are always happy to see me. Dogs are also smart and successful creatures. Our dogs have learned several cute tricks. But dogs (and other non-human animals) are missing something we take for granted: episodic memory. Dogs don't remember what happened yesterday and don't plan for tomorrow. In defining episodic memory, Endel Tulving argued that it is unique to humans. Experience influences all animals. Most mammals and birds can build complex sets of knowledge or semantic memory. You and I also remember the experience...

Dogs are becoming more intelligent and are even learning morals from human contact, scientists claim. They say the fact that dogs' play rarely escalates into a fight shows the animals abide by social rules. During one study, dogs which held up a paw were rewarded with a food treat. When a lone dog was asked to raise its paw but received no treat, the researchers found it begged for up to 30 minutes. But when they tested two dogs together but rewarded only one, the dog which missed out soon stopped playing the game. Dr Friederike Range, of the University...

They may be man's best friend, but dogs have little to thank humans for it seems. Research suggests the domesticated pets can't solve problems as well as their wild cousins because living with us has made them 'incapable of thinking for themselves.' In tests, experts presented a 'puzzle box' containing food to a group of dogs, and a group of wolves and while the wolves were capable of breaking inside, the dogs looked to humans for help.

They may be man's best friend, but dogs have little to thank humans for it seems. Research suggests the domesticated pets can't solve problems as well as their wild cousins because living with us has made them 'incapable of thinking for themselves.' In tests, experts presented a 'puzzle box' containing food to a group of dogs, and a group of wolves and while the wolves were capable of breaking inside, the dogs looked to humans for help.

You may think your dog has an irrational hatred of cats, but their instinct to chase felines out of their territory might be more reasonable than you think. Fossils have revealed the two species have a rocky past after the introduction of cats to the Americas had a devastating effect on the continent's species of wild dogs. In fact, it is thought that competition from cats caused up to 40 species of dog to become extinct in the region millions of years ago.

In ancient Egypt, so many people worshiped Anubis, the jackal-headed god of death, that the catacombs next to his sacred temple once held nearly 8 million mummified puppies and grown dogs, a new study finds. The catacomb ceiling also contains the fossil of an ancient sea monster, a marine vertebrate that's more than 48 million years old, but it's unclear whether the Egyptians noticed the existence of the fossil when they built the tomb for the canine mummies, the researchers said. Many of the mummies have since disintegrated or been disrupted by grave robbers and industrialists, who likely used the...

By Paul Rincon 20 October 2015 Dogs may have become man's best friend in Central Asia, according to the study Today's dogs can trace their origins to Central Asia, according to one of the most comprehensive genetic surveys yet. Dogs are the most diverse animal on the planet - a legacy of thousands of years of selective breeding by humans. But they derive from wild wolves that were gradually tamed and inducted into human hunting groups - perhaps near Mongolia or Nepal. The findings come from an analysis of DNA from thousands of pooches, and are published in PNAS journal....

The other night, before my wife and I put our 2½-year-old twins to bed, she began reading them one of their favorite books, Where the Wild Things Are. Juliet, in Dalmatian pajamas, asked, “Mommy, where are the wild things?” My wife glanced over at our gray-and-white tabby curled up on a chair nearby. “Well,” she said, “Jasper’s a wild thing.” Juliet looked incredulous. “Jasper’s not a wild thing,” she said. “He’s a cat!” The dispute is understandable. Though cats have lived with us for nearly 10,000 years and are the world’s most popular pet, experts disagree about whether they’re actually...

Scientists in the Russian Far East have carried out a post-mortem examination of the remains of the only mummified dog ever found in the world. Found sealed inside permafrost during a hunt for traces of woolly mammoths, the perfectly-preserved body is 12,450 years old. The dog, believed to be a three-month-old female, was unearthed in 2011 on the Syallakh River in the Ust-Yana region of Yakutia, also known as the Sakha Republic. Experts spent the past four years analysing the body – which included not just bones but also its heart, lungs and stomach – but only carried out the...

The ancestors of modern wolves and dogs split into different evolutionary lineages 27,000 to 40,000 years ago, much earlier than some other research has suggested, scientists reported Thursday. The new finding is based on a bone fragment found on the Taimyr Peninsula in Siberia several years ago. When scientists studied the bone and reconstructed its genome — the first time that had been done for an ancient wolf, or any kind of ancient carnivore — they found it was a new species that lived 35,000 years ago. Based on the differences between the genome of the new species, called the...

Dogs have been man's best friend for up to 40,000 years, suggests new research. The study shows dogs' special relationship with humans might date back 27,000 to 40,000 years. The findings, published in the journal Current Biology, come from genomic analysis of an ancient Taimyr wolf bone.