If asked outright, most American dog owners would say their loving pooch is a part of the family. Perhaps it’s the long history of interaction between our two species that makes us so close. Dogs and humans have been living together for at least 15,000 years.
There seems no end to the litany of breeds, 400 at last count.
Though varying in size, shape, color, and coat dramatically, all breeds of dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) originate from one common ancestor, considered the gray wolf (Canis lupus). What happened was, people domesticated then bred them over time selectively, for different traits. The desired traits changed over the years, and this resulted in different breeds.Now, a team of researchers has assembled the most comprehensive genomic map on dogs to date. The results were published in the journal Cell Reports. Researchers gathered blood samples or mouth scrapings from 1,346 dogs, of 161 breeds, over the course of 20 years. The dogs came from Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia.
Turns out, dogs were bred into certain types or “clades.” There are 23 in all. As humans migrated to different places, dogs went with them, even into the Americas across the Bering Strait. Today, all the dogs that we know of in North America originated in Europe. The European breeds superseded the original ones or interbred with them.
The 23 clades…
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