Fossil Ape May Be Ancestor of All Apes - Report

Science - Reuters ^ | Thu Nov 18, 2004 | Maggie Fox

[curiosity]

Ice ages, droughts, plagues, etc. The earth's climate and environment is in constant flux.

[Elsie]

Which one of those caused Protoman to die out?

[SunkenCiv]

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[Oberon]

Sure, they're both still canids, but the point is that the domestic dog is *not* a gray wolf any longer, they're a new species.

Yet they remain cross-fertile, and the offspring of such a union are not "mules," i.e. infertile hybrids, but canids that are themselves fertile.

I think the classification of wolves and dogs as different species is based on morphology, and probably is erroneous. After all, the Mexican hairless and the English mastiff are the same species, yet they are no closer to one another morphologically than either of them is to good ol' Canis lupus.

I suspect that all a dog is is a wolf after two thousand generations or so of domestication. You can muck about with the size, shape, habits, intelligence, and disposition all you like, but in the end the creature's still playing the genetic hand it was originally dealt, and will still make healthy puppies with a wolf mate.

And that opinion, I might add, is worth exactly what you paid for it.

[SunkenCiv]

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