EVOLUTION OF THE DOG FAMILY

Thirty million years ago, during the Oligocene period, the first dog like creature, Cynodictis (amongoose - like animal with a long muzzle), appeared on Earth. It replaced the earlier widespread group of carnivores – the creodonts. All the earliest fossils of the dog family have been found in North America and date from this period. Another canid – like carnivore, Tomarctus , evolved during the Miocene period, from 24 million years ago. In turn the genus Canis evolved, which became Canis lupus , or wolf, some 300,000 years ago. From this wolf, the first domestic dogs date from around 12,000 years ago. There were also creatures that looked similar to these dog ancestors, such ad the hyaenodonts from the Oligocene, but they were not related to true hyenas, which are closer to the cat family. From ancestral carnivores like Cynodictis , the canids evolved into fast-running meat eaters that hunted prey on open grasslands, and most of today’s living species have inherited this way of life.

MODERN EVOLUTION

During the last Ice Age, from about 40,000 years ago, wolves and humans both lived as family groups of social hunters. They even competed for the same prey. They would have killed each other whenever possible, but it also likely that the wolves began to scavenge arround the debris left by humans. Sometimes young wolf cubs were tamed, and by breeding over many generations they evolved into domestic dogs.