Pet Bytes: Do You Know Which Canine Species Gave Us All Modern Dogs?
Surprise—it’s the gray wolf! All domestic dogs, from tiny toy poodles to towering Great Danes, are descendants of the Canis lupus, domesticated around 130,000 years ago.
But if every dog shares the same wild ancestor, why do they look so different?
We have humans to thank. Through generations of selective breeding, people have guided the evolution of dogs into over 400 distinct breeds. While they all belong to one species—Canis lupus familiaris, a domesticated subspecies of the gray wolf—each breed has been shaped by human preferences for traits like size, fur, behavior, and color.
It’s a fascinating example of how human influence can reshape nature, one tail wag at a time.