Hope I dont sound stupid

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Originally Posted by panthercz

So take a wild fox or wolf and do the same thing but instead of having only 30 years, do it over 3,000 years. That is how we end up with so many different types of dogs that for the most part all came from the same wild ancestors.

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I have read somewhere that the coloring of foxes has a direct link to how well they take to human handlers.
The lighter whiter colored foxes were more apt to approach the guy doing the research over the darker red foxes.

It's all selective breeding.

I've often wondered about how stupid chickens are, how the heck did they survive in the wild? LOL, I do know the answer to that one. Just imagine a fat hen running around in the wild. :rolleyes:

There is a original wild species of chicken. Hard to locate, although there is now a domestic line of those that mimic the wild.

Dogs are domestic. There are no wild poodles racing around the jungles of Germany hunting bags of kibble. (cute fact, poodles orginated in Germany as a hunting breed, and later were bred down to the small size for lap dogs in england)
Dogs were originally kept because they were useful. Breeds were hunting dogs, or later on, guards, and herders. Only later on in more civilized times were dogs turned into pets. In Roman times, dogs that were kept to guard the house were still expected to scavenge for their food.
Dogs are pack animals, which is why they took so well to being domesticated.

Maybe all dogs originate from the chupacabra.

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Originally Posted by Glee

The dogs we have today were probably selectively bred from different species of wild dogs and wolves that are mostly now extinct. For example, the wolves here in Alaska before the glaciers melted were of a different species (sub species? I can't remember) of wolf than what lives here today. The huskies and malamutes may have been bred from those wolves instead of the ones here now, depending how far back you want to go. An example of trait selection is breeding for the upraised tail in huskies; some people think this is so the Natives could distinguish them from wolves at a distance. No one really knows 100% where all the variations of dogs originated from. Some scientists say "wolves"... but there are multiple species of wolves, and like you mentioned, dogs like the African wild dog (plus whatever-else-I'm-forgetting). It's a really fascinating topic to me and a person could theorize endlessly about it and never get bored. :D

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Dire wolf?

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Originally Posted by N4S

Maybe all dogs originate from the chupacabra.

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Just the chihuahua. :P

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Originally Posted by Ginevive

Dire wolf?

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Maybe that's what I was thinking of. Or it may have been another wolf all together; I heard it during a natural history lecture. I need to pay more attention in class.

Dire wolves died off, while grey wolves continued.
I believe dogs came from a common ancester to modern wolves, coyotes, wild dogs... etc.
Some breeds probably came directly from wolves, just were bred to different looks. Since dog breeds originate from all over, you'd have to check into exactly what started that particular breed.
The Japanese breeds are unlikely to be part of the same linage as the ones from Northern europe/North america. Possible, maybe.

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Originally Posted by Shelby

Selective breeding (unnatural selection if you will) is what takes a wild canine and makes it a poodle. A domestic dog has far less genetic diversity than a wild dog.. a poodle for instance has lost the genetic ability to produce a normal shedding double coat.

Accumulated genetic mistakes (mutations that cause non shedding hair, loss of pigment, stunted growth etc as in a white toy poodle) along with natural variation were selected for by people to produce a pet breed in the case of a poodle..

No new information has been added to the DNA.. hence a domestic dog and a wolf can still interbreed.. they are the same animal still, even though they appear so different. This isn't evolution, and I know I may ruffle some feathers here by saying so. :P

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Yes it is evolution.......evolution is the change in gene frequencies of a population over time. So it is evolution.....

You could make an argument that it isn't speciation. You would be relying heavily on a lab-based biological species concept......(which means you might have to consider a Ball and a Angolan python the same species)...would a wolf in the wild really mate with a domesticated dog?

Bottom line.....Speciation and Evolution are not the same thing.....

Chickens can be pretty hard to catch. I guess that the wilder types would be the banties; smaller, faster. I can easily catch our two larger roosters (RI red, white meat-type) but they are big, fat, spoiled butterballs. Now, to catch our little banty hen.. I honestly think that if I had to catch her, or die, I would be dead meat!
But the big roosters do have quite an attack. Our white one got mad when Mark picked up the red. He started karate-kicking Mark trying to get him with his spurs! Ouch, roos have big spurs..

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

Yes it is evolution.......evolution is the change in gene frequencies of a population over time. So it is evolution.....

You could make an argument that it isn't speciation. You would be relying heavily on a lab-based biological species concept......(which means you might have to consider a Ball and a Angolan python the same species)...would a wolf in the wild really mate with a domesticated dog?

Bottom line.....Speciation and Evolution are not the same thing.....

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I don't see how a reduction in information is evolution.

For varying reasons, animals that diversify into different species are less likely to interbreed in the wild, though usually they still can successfully. Species isn't a hard and fast term (just seeing how frequently taxonomy changes will show you that!)

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Originally Posted by Shelby

I don't see how a reduction in information is evolution.

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It's a common misunderstanding.

Evolution is purely change over time. There is no implied value. Information can increase or decrease. The only criteria is the success of the population in question. Superfluity of function can be wasteful, and so skills, instincts, and even organs can be a waste of tissue...hence whale's loss of feet, snake's loss of legs, and horse's loss of toes. They lack the genetic information to create those items, because it was unecessary for their survival, and was eliminated.