Dogs evolved from a wolf lineage that has since gone extinct, a study of canine DNA suggests.
Researchers have long assumed that dogs branched off from a still-living wolf species. Geneticists have combed the world looking for wolf populations that most closely resemble dogs genetically, and concluded that dogs originated in the Middle East or Southeast Asia. But fossils suggest Europe as the site of dog domestication.
Posted June 4 at arXiv.org, the new study finds that interbreeding between dogs and wolves after domestication has made wolves in certain locations seem more closely related to dogs than they actually are.