Scientists Compared Dog DNA to Every Wolf on Earth — Only One Matched

Dogs descended from wolves. That much everyone agrees on. The question scientists wanted to answer was which wolf. There are wolf populations spread across every continent except Antarctica and Australia. Each one has a slightly different genome. Scientists compared domestic dog DNA to all of them. The result was not what anyone expected. One wolf population came up closer than all the others. But the bigger finding was what that closeness revealed about the wolf that dogs actually descended from, and why that ancestor is no longer found anywhere on Earth. 0:00 Dogs came from wolves. Scientists wanted to know which one. 2:50 The wolf family is bigger than most people think 3:40 What scientists expected to find 4:23The Ethiopian wolf result 6:00 The red wolf surprise 7:01Running through gray wolf populations 7:54 The closest match 8:45 The twist nobody predicted 9:39 The extinct ancestor 11:30 What the ancient wolf DNA confirmed 13:09 What changed when wolves became dogs 16:16 What this means for every dog alive today Sources: — Bergstrom A et al. (2022). Grey wolf genomic history reveals a dual ancestry of dogs. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04... — Frantz LAF et al. (2016). Genomic and archaeological evidence suggest a dual origin of domestic dogs. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf3161 — Skoglund P et al. (2015). Ancient wolf genome reveals an early divergence of domestic dog ancestors. Current Biology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.04... — vonHoldt BM et al. (2010). Genome-wide SNP and haplotype analyses reveal a rich history underlying dog domestication. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08837