by Those little fluffy dogs running down the street may look cute, but be careful – they probably have a wolf inside them.
This is the discovery that US scientists announced on Monday. They were surprised to find that almost two-thirds of all dog breeds have a detectable amount of wolf DNA.
These are not genetic remnants from when dogs originally evolved from wolves, some 20,000 years ago, but rather evidence that domesticated dogs and wild wolves have interbred in the last few thousand years.
That doesn’t mean “wolves will come into your house and mistake it for your dog,” Logan Kistler, curator at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and co-author of a new study, told AFP.
It also appears to have influenced the size, smell and even personality of modern dog breeds, the scientists said.
Dogs and wolves can produce offspring together, but crossbreeding is considered rare.
“Prior to this study, leading science seemed to indicate that a dog is only a dog if there can’t be much wolf DNA present at all,” the study’s lead author, Audrey Lin of the American Museum of Natural History, said in a statement.
To find out more, the team analyzed thousands of dog and wolf genomes in publicly available databases.
They found that over 64 percent of modern breeds have wolf ancestry, with even tiny Chihuahuas carrying around 0.2 percent.
“This makes perfect sense to anyone who owns a Chihuahua,” Lin joked.
– Who is the “wolfiest”? –
Czechoslovakian and Saarloos wolfdogs had the most wolf DNA, with up to 40 percent.
Of the breeds used as pets, the Grand Anglo-Francais Tricolore hunting dog was the most “wolf-like” with around five percent wolf DNA. Sighthounds such as Salukis and Afghans also ranked high.
While dogs with wolf DNA tended to be larger, this wasn’t always the case – St. Bernards didn’t have any.
The research also showed that 100 percent of village dogs – which live in human settlements but are no one’s pets – have wolf ancestry.
Kistler suspected that village dogs, which have more opportunities to come into contact with wolves, could be the reason why wolf DNA entered the dogs’ gene pool.
Female wolves separated from their wolf pack by human activities such as habitat destruction may end up breeding with stray dogs, he suggested.
– Friendly or territorial? –
The researchers also compared their results to the terms kennel clubs use to describe the personalities of different breeds.
Breeds with few or no wolves were more likely to be described as friendly, easy to train and affectionate.
On the other hand, dogs with more wolf DNA were more likely to be viewed as wary of strangers, independent, dignified or territorial.
Kistler emphasized that descriptions of breeds are imperfect and do not predict an individual dog’s behavior.
“Wolves evolved for specific habitats and specific conditions, and dogs were carried by humans to every corner of the inhabited world,” he said.
Dogs simply had to adapt to the places humans brought them and to “wolf genes that gave them advantages in certain contexts,” he explained.
For example, many Tibetan breeds, like the fluffy little Lhasa Apso, have a gene called EPAS1 that arose from adapting to higher altitudes. Tibetan wolves have the same gene.
The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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