How Dogs Evolved Into ‘Our Best Friends’ Opportunistic wolves may have run into humans on teh hunting trail. Those that played it cool began to inbreed, being rewarded with food scraps and hunting leftovers by the humans as a reward for domestication and aesthetic beauty. They might have then been able to spread their genes widely enough to become a new species. From NPR: As humans and wolves began to work and live together, physical features on the wolf began to change: Its skeletal frame grew smaller, and its jaw shortened. Wolves that socialized well with humans began to travel with them, and then were able to pass on their genes. “You had populations of dog-wolves that became isolated and in doing so, they began to inbreed,” says Derr. “And when you inbreed, you get genetic peculiarities that arise and then those peculiarities become part of the population. If they work or become popular or have some function of beauty or utility, then they were kept by the humans — and that population then spreads those through other populations through breeding.” (via NPR)
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How Dogs Evolved Into ‘Our Best Friends’

Opportunistic wolves may have run into humans on teh hunting trail. Those that played it cool began to inbreed, being rewarded with food scraps and hunting leftovers by the humans as a reward for domestication and aesthetic beauty. They might have then been able to spread their genes widely enough to become a new species. From NPR:

As humans and wolves began to work and live together, physical features on the wolf began to change: Its skeletal frame grew smaller, and its jaw shortened. Wolves that socialized well with humans began to travel with them, and then were able to pass on their genes.

“You had populations of dog-wolves that became isolated and in doing so, they began to inbreed,” says Derr. “And when you inbreed, you get genetic peculiarities that arise and then those peculiarities become part of the population. If they work or become popular or have some function of beauty or utility, then they were kept by the humans — and that population then spreads those through other populations through breeding.”

(via NPR)

Source: NPR

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