In Japan, a group of researchers managed to establish the nearest relative of the modern dog, reports phys.org magazine.
According to scientists, the ancestor of modern pieces was the Japanese Wolf (Canis Lupus Hodophilax). It was relatively small and most often had red color. It is noted that their kind was not so long ago – the last representative was killed by Japanese farmers on one of the islands in 1905.
On the genetic proximity of this animal and modern dogs, there is its DNA, which was extracted from the bones of the Japanese Wolf. It was compared with DNA wolves, dogs and foxes. It turned out that this DNA is located on a unique evolutionary branch of wolves, which arose somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago. Some of these ancient wolves evolved in Japanese wolves, and others in dogs. Based on these data, scientists put forward the theory that the dog’s ancestor did not occur from the Middle East or Europe, as previously thought, and from East Asia.
In addition, they stated that according to DNA analysis, the next relatives of the Japanese Wolf are now inhabit New Guinea and Australia. We are talking about such rocks as a singing dog and Dingo.
Earlier, the international team of researchers found that the cause of extinction of mammoths in Siberia, which took place for about four thousand years ago, was primarily a sharp climate change, and not human activity.