User talk:William Harris/Archive 3

"Dog" edit
William- I am trying to edit the "Dog" page so that the statement that modern wolves are not closely related to wolves that were domesticated is changed. I know for readers who have a bit of genetic knowledge this makes sense but for the layman the implication is that dogs and wolves today are not closely related. This veers IMO into the politics of dog/wolf speciation and is not scientific. Please assist me or guide me on how this can be accomplished- thanks, Jeff Thurston Makumbe (talk) 19:14, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
 * 'morning Jeff, I am glad that you resumed your editing on Wikipedia. Jeff, the position you are going in is the exact opposite of what the researchers were saying.


 * Let us start with Larson, who the heavy-weight in domestication, and who was giving an overview of Freedman that the average person can understand. I quote: "Another more intriguing reason stems from Freedman et al.’s conclusion that dog and wolf lineages are reciprocally monophyletic, suggesting that none of the modern wolf populations are related to the wolves that were first domesticated.
 * Let us look at Freedman, from who's abstract I quote: "we find that, surprisingly, none of the extant wolf lineages from putative domestication centers is more closely related to dogs, and, instead, the sampled wolves form a sister monophyletic clade." You will need to have a look at the article monophyly - not only does the modern dog clade not match the modern wolf clade, but this means that the dog's wolf ancestor and the modern wolf's ancestor did not genetically match to begin with.
 * In summary, the dog and modern wolf subspecies today do not greatly differ because they all began from one wolf and then diverged, they differ because they began from different types of wolves to begin with, and the very slight divergences found today in the modern wolf as reported by Freedman have resulted in their subspecies, however they all remain the holarctic gray wolf. Freedman even hinted in his article who the ancestor might have been, refer to the extinct Megafaunal wolf who we are not completely sure was lupus. I hope this helps.
 * Of interest, the Himalayan wolf (Canis lupus) is on its way to quitting the lupus pack and has been found to be more closely related to the African golden wolf (Canis anthus). Our view of wolf populations and their histories is about to come undone. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  22:32, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

William- Thanks for the response. I have read all or at least most of the wikipedia pages on dog/wolf and also many of the sources cited in these pages. Modern gray wolves and dogs are both Canis Lupus correct? They are both descended from ancient (15,000-30,000 BCE) wolves which were also Canis Lupus. Is this correct? Is there doubt now that both dogs and wolves are Canis Lupus ? One of the charts on the myriad pages on this question show that dogs and European clade wolves are more closely related than European clade wolves and New World wolves. Basically what I'm saying is that the statement "... modern wolves are not closely related to the wolves that were domesticated..." seems to imply that dogs and wolves aren't closely related when in fact it is akin to saying that Eskimos and Kalahari Bushmen are not closely related. Maybe not- but they are both Homo Sapiens and thus evolutionarily extremely closely related. I think that a lot of the problem is that "Dog"and "Wolf" are such charged words. 30,000 to 15,000 years ago no one could have made the distinction except by possibly slight tameness in what we call dogs. Being trained in Fine Art I find that the differences people see in ancient dog and wolf skulls are mostly bunk- I bet that there are extant dogs even today whose skulls would pass muster as gray wolves. So in response to me you are talking about lineages but these are very closely related lineages- right? The same as lineages in modern gray wolves or human beings. it depends on how magnified what we are looking at is. I was aware of the controversy with the Himalayan Wolf - isn't something like that also going on with coyotes and gray wolves actually being more genetically related than was thought with a 50,000 year ago divergence? Anyway- I see politicization in this question of dog/wolf speciation- one camp wants to believe that dogs, gray wolves red wolves and dingoes are all separate species and another sees that basically genetically they are all the same animal ( unless the red wolf is just a coyote). So putting in the beginning paragraphs on the wikipedia article on dogs that "modern wolves aren't closely related to the wolves that were domesticated" seems to me a confusing point to emphasize. Makumbe (talk) 23:36, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Jeff, I agree with you entirely except for the last sentence, which is why I moderated Larson's "not related" to "not closely related."

William- I read both Freedman and the Larson tracts. Nothing in them led me to the conclusion that dogs are a separate species from wolves. The whole notion of speciation is fraught with pitfalls but I do know that reciprocally monophyletic groups can be the same species and they are by definition closely related. What am I not seeing? ARE modern gray wolves and dogs separate species with the dog having descended from a megafaunal wolf which was not Canis Lupus ? If so this is exciting! One thing which causes me amusement is the earnest fantasies which are part of the speculation about certain characteristics in dogs- eg.- the starch breakdown gene which everyone latches on to as proof of doggie uniqueness. Even with all the jargon it's pretty easy to decipher that this is probably just fantasy- the wolves which were domesticated had no need of starch breakdown- especially amongst our hunter-gatherer ancestors. The population bottleneck in dogs at the time of domestication reminds me of what happened with cave art and possibly language- early humans found something very amazing and it spread overall and quickly. It seems there was one specific wolf type which was now a dog. Is the crux of it all here? Are we talking about different species of earlier wolves or subspecies? it seems to me that even with Freedman we don't separate Canis Lupus back into Canis Lupus/ Canis Familiaris Please help me wrap my mind around this. To be honest I am ready to let Canis Lupus Familiaris go if it's true! Thanks much, Jeff Thurston Makumbe (talk) 02:54, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * This is the big issue and the one in which the evolutionary biologists (genetics) disagree with the taxonomists. What are we going to classify a taxon by, what it looks like (phenotype) or what its DNA tells us (genotype)? Currently, if the two agree then we have a taxon, but if they disagree then confusion reigns. Two centuries ago Carl Linnaeus looked out of his window, saw a wolf, and categorized it as C. lupus. After that, anything across the Holarctic that looked similar was classified as lupus. However, Carl did not observe a Pleistocene wolf - it had been extinct for 10,000 years - I wonder if he would still have classified that as lupus? Let me start by saying that genetic studies can deliver conflicting results depending on the specimens chosen, the techniques (technology) employed, and the assumptions made - Adam Boyko said that a decade ago. In the past, biologists assumed the dog descended from the modern wolf because they looked similar, and the differences put down to "domestication" - "man the magnificent" had created them from wild wolves. A very young Dr Bob Wayne even found in the late 80s and early 90s that, based on short strands of mDNA (i.e. the minimum of data), that the dog was closer to the gray wolf than it was to the coyote. Then the technology advanced, we were able to get longer and longer lengths (more data) of DNA to analyze, and things went a bit pear-shaped. Some dog specimens were genetically closer to wolves, some to even particular wolf subspecies, and some far apart. Then it became clear that there had been admixture between dogs and wolves - as there still is today - and that the dog looked more similar to a gray wolf because of this admixture. The dog's genome had been introgressed. This raises the question of what the dog was before the admixture?
 * Then last decade we began finding wolf fossils with broad palates and short rostrums capable of chomping large bones and bringing down Pleistocene megaherbivores, and it started to become clear that "man the magnificent" had not created dogs - we were finding ancient wolf specimens that looked "short-faced" or "dog-like" to begin with. Then came Thalmann 2013 (one of the now-Professor Wayne's Phd graduates from UCLA) and based on the specimens used, the mDNA of the dog matched the extinct wolves from prehistoric Europe more than to the extant wolf. Freedman 2014 (another of Wayne's PhD graduates) confirmed that the 3 extant wolves he studied did not match the dog as well as we had thought. This was followed by Skoglund 2015 and the first draft genome of a Pleistocene wolf. He recorded his Taimyr wolf as lupus but did not regard it as a gray wolf - it had branched from the wolf-dog lineage before the gray wolf-dog split. We now have the evolutionary biologists talking in terms of the "holarctic gray wolf" and the "Pleistocene wolf" as if they were separate things, but once again we need to be aware that these are closer to each other than say a bear and a wolf. So, are these ancient wolves lupus? Where do we draw a line? This leads us back to the question of what is a species? To make it even more interesting, Lee 2015 found there could be some Canis variabilis in the dog mix as well, yet it was thought to have become extinct 350,000 years ago. Confusing and getting exciting? You bet! Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  05:10, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

William- One last thing- you say that dogs and modern wolves are sister monophyletic clades- doesn't this mean they are as closely related as possible without being in the same clade? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Makumbe (talk • contribs) 04:47, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * It does not imply they are closely related as possible. It implies that they are different based on the genetic analysis. If you were to compare snails with wolves, both would show a monophyletic clade i.e. they contain the modern population and its ancestor. This indicates that snails are not wolves. Pushing this further, some researchers believe this is evidence that the dog is not a gray wolf. Other researchers show the dog clade closer to the gray wolf clade than the coyote clade, i.e. as "close as possible" in the world of Canis, and therefore propose that the dog is a gray wolf.
 * Professor Xiaoming Wang and the Emeritus Professor of the Smithsonian, Richard H. Tedford, propose that the dog should be classified as Canis lupus familiaris under the Biological Species Concept and Canis familiaris under the Evolutionary Species Concept in their persuasive book "Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History". I like their thinking! Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  05:31, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

William- Thanks for the detailed and clarifying response. I appreciate it. I learn more from these explanations than all of wikipedia and blogs I read because you are completely abreast of this situation. I have to 2 nits to pick out- I get monophyletic clades- my point was that SISTER clades are closely related. Also- again- skull measurements and characteristics are so variable and subjective that I don't find them convincing- people-even scientists- see what they want to see. Witness the Goyet Dog which I believe is now back to being a wolf at least skullwise. I have the Wang book but haven't read it- I will. I'm taking some basic dog genetics courses online this summer and my son is getting his Masters in evolutionary biology so I'm hoping to use him as a sounding board. Anyway- you have convinced me to let go of my previous firmly rooted convictions about dogs and wolves and to see the twisted complexity involved. I guess the more we know the more ambiguous everything becomes. BTW- when does the Great Dog Genome Project which is ongoing come out with results? Thanks again for helping me along- Jeff ThurstonMakumbe (talk) 15:37, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * 'morning Jeff. It's my pleasure. Two things have come out of our interactions. One is that the Dog article was missing the section that I have recently included, which was my fault for not spelling it out. The second is that the "Origin of the domestic dog" is due for an update. I was waiting for the "flagship" report by Larson to come out but it is not due for release for another year. Additionally, vonHoldt and Clutton-Brock have a chapter each in the update of Serpell's book, so much of the primary sourcing I have in that article is now supported by secondary sourcing - just the way Wikipedia likes articles to be.
 * Germonpre has not yet finished with the Goyet dog. Her original position was (1) it was domesticated and (2) it was an early dog that would be hard to tell apart from a wolf. Even if her point (2) is shown to be incorrect, her point (1) has not be disproven. Wang and Tedford is an excellent work by two very talented people. Bear in mind that Wang believes that C. variabilis is the ancestor of the dog, although he does not state that in the book but does so in his later research. You were correct that the modern wolf and the dog have a common ancestor, however we do not know how far back that goes. Go back far enough and all life on earth has a common ancestor. For now, we believe that they are from two populations of "wolves". What those were has yet to be confirmed - the Himalayan wolf leads me to think we are headed for a Canis soup. I am glad you are doing a bit of study into genetics and the key to following the dog research is how to compare genetic sequence data. Is it mitochondrial or nuclear data or both? How many base pairs of data were extracted? Do the assumptions made appear sound? Does the conclusion follow from the data? Not all studies are comparable. Your son is to be congratulated and is a credit to the Thurston lineage! Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  22:36, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks William- yes my father was Dr. H. David Thurston- famous plant pathologist!... So- Canis soup indeed! And by archaic definitions of species even coyotes and possibly jackals should be in the mix- coyotes at least are muddying the Canis waters in the eastern USA and Canada! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Makumbe (talk • contribs) 00:43, 19 June 2017 (UTC) Makumbe (talk) 03:15, 19 June 2017 (UTC)Makumbe (talk) 03:45, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Hybrid (biology)
Thanks for your comments. Yes, I pulled several GANs after waiting for months, leaving a few in the "ever-lengthening". On your suggestion, I'm pleased, but a little concerned that you're both new to reviewing, and may have both academic and FA's comprehensiveness rather than GA's "covers the main points" in mind. A GA should be decent but not attempt to cover everything (impossible in a single article for FAs too, of course, when a topic is covered by shelves of books and papers. On the citation template front (since you mentioned it), in fact no citation format is required for GA, and the mass of rules is explicitly discounted. As it happens, I always try to be reasonably tidy and to use a template, but that's just a personal choice, not a GA requirement. I can of course do some discreet shepherding as we go along on the GA process "which is intentionally simple". Given that you already think it's a B-class at least, we shouldn't have far to go. If you feel like going for it, just reply here, and I'll ping you the moment I've nominated the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:31, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmmmm Chiswick Chap, class=B rarely awarded outside of MILHIST, eh? Perhaps it is due to my disciplined military background from days long ago........ I have consulted my well-experienced mentor - rest assured I will be assisted with trainer-wheels! Give me a week to review the article, make some initial notes, and I will get back to you for your initiation. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  08:35, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Excellent. Let's do that. BTW we need to finish by 13 July as holiday season intervenes after that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:36, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * That tags you as located in the northern hemisphere, I am currently experiencing winter with no holiday season in sight. This should not take longer than a week, given a bit of focus. William Harris •   (talk) •  09:38, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Chiswick, in fact! Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:25, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Good evening Chiswick Chap, this one appears to have a rights issue, and you may need to call in assistance to get it sorted out prior to our start time: File:Comparison of hybrid human skulls.png  (It is nice to be reading the Queen's English for a refreshing change.) Regards,  William Harris •   (talk) •  09:47, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The image has reinserted itself. It has a fair usage rationale appropriate to the article: what is the rights issue exactly? I can't see what needs sorting other than to have it deleted if the usage is not fair. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:29, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Believe me, I'm happy to drop the image. The 'humans' (if you know what I mean) have tried hard to push from their corner. I'll chop it now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:54, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Chiswick Chap - else, wait until the start and I will treat it brutally, leading to your "directed" delete. Here is a curious item:http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Hybrid_(biology) Don't be too concerned, I believe it "reflects" the Wikipedia article as it stood back in 2008. Regards,  William Harris •   (talk) •  10:00, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, they mirror us, or EB, or Colombia, maybe a few others. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:13, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Are you now ready to embark on an adventure, Chiswick Chap? I am, when you are ready. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  10:07, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, nominating now, hope this will be a smooth process! Here's a link. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:19, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello Chiswick Chap, you work swiftly. The image of a building has fair use but this is not a building. I doubt this is the right template and have referred this image to those with more expertise on these things than I for advice. Regarding the article, we are very close to finishing, however our human friends have reflected some things that don't look quite right and I will need to spend a bit of time validating from the articles. I may then directly edit the article for correction. This is the only real hurdle now. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  09:13, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, do what you need to; for me, the article is basically complete. The implication is that the image would be fair use at Archaic human admixture with modern humans but not here? The NFUR criteria do appear to be met, actually, though perhaps more defensibly in the more specific article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:15, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Given the consensus, I've moved the image to AHAWMH and updated its NFUR. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:36, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Chiswick Chap: Humans - I am about to make an edit that may upset somebody. William Harris •   (talk) •  10:39, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Dog evolution
I have now finally learnt that the ancestor of the domestic dog was a distinct population not identical with any extant wolf population. It is possible that the Paleolithic dog is exactly this Pleistocene "ghost population". Has it been possible to recover ancient DNA from Paleolithic dog remains? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:37, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * You are a very smart man, Florian Blaschke. The genetic analysis should have been undertaken as part of the study I have reported under Origin of the domestic dog, where I have included: "As the taxonomic classification of the "proto-dog" Paleolithic dogs as being either dogs or wolves remains controversial, they were excluded from the study".
 * You would have thought this would have been the exact reason to have included them in a study that was searching for the ancestry of the dog. Especially the Paleolithic "Altai dog" from Central Asia when the researchers were claiming that there were no Late Pleistocene "dog" remains found in Central Asia, and given a date of 33,000 YBP that is around the time that the dog was calculated to have diverged from the wolf (Thalmann 2013, Skoglund 2015). In my opinion, someone is playing a chess-game with the unfolding of the research information. It is possibly for a higher and benevolent purpose, there is a much bigger picture about to be revealed within the next 12 months about where both the dog and the extant wolf came from, but I find it frustrating! Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  05:21, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Weird. Thank you for the info. How about the megafaunal wolf, also implied or suspected to be an ancestor of the domestic dog? Oh, wait, you've already made a section about this. It's interesting and a bit counterintuitive that the gracile version became the wild gray wolf and the robust version the domestic dog, because gracility, to me, implies neoteny and I thought that dogs are more neotenised than wolves. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:48, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Florian, I have that covered under Evolution of the wolf:
 * "Wolf cubs have similar relative skull proportions as adult dogs and this was proposed as evidence that the domestic dog is a neotenic wolf. This was proposed to be due to either human selection for juvenile appearance or due to a pleiotropic effect as a result of selection for juvenile behavior (Clutton-Brock 1977; Belyaev 1979; Wayne 1986; Coppinger and Schneider 1995). Wayne (1986) concluded that his dog samples did not have significant relative shortening of the rostrum compared to wolves, calling this identification feature into question.[52] A 2004 study that used 310 wolf skulls and over 700 dog skulls representing 100 breeds concluded that the evolution of dog skulls can generally not be described by heterochronic processes such as neoteny although some pedomorphic dog breeds have skulls that resemble the skulls of juvenile wolves.[64] 'Dogs are not paedomorphic wolves.'[65]"


 * We can probably set aside neotony. Something happened at the end of the LGM to cause extinction and major change in wolves and ancestral dogs - the population bottleneck the evolutionary biologists tell us about. We are not sure as yet what that was. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  09:40, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

William- do you mean we can set aside neotony to describe skull features in ancestor dogs or also things like floppy ears, small size and juvenile behavior in dogs today? I think that it is almost impossible today to even find a dog skull which would be a stand in for ancient dogs with the exception of the dingo and possibly some Inuit dogs like the Greenland sled dog. The Dingo basically has a small wolf's head- the Greenland dog supports your argument a bit more. I think neotony especially since those weirdo Victorians (and their standard-bearers in the UKC and AKC) is sadly a major force in dog looks. My Jack Russell Terriers have skulls which except for a pronounced "stop" would generally pass for small wolf skulls- they have gigantic teeth for their size and relatively long noses. I think that trying to compare skulls is difficult because of individual differences in samples and because of the scientist's or viewer's inevitable prejudice. Again- not arguing the dog/wolf ancestor problem but pointing out that neotony is a factor today in dogs even if the ancestor dogs had slightly different features than modern gray wolves. Thanks again for your patience, Jeff T.Makumbe (talk) 20:03, 5 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Jeff, based on the references above, we can. There are a number of dog breeds that do not have "floppy ears" (huski etc), small size is a meaningless term when looking at a 120kg English mastiff, and is the dog's behavior really that of a juvenile wolf? The dog's skull exhibits variability outside that of the order carnivore, perhaps indicating "soup" again or some genes have become unbalanced. You are correct - researchers in the past have been forming conclusions based on their own beliefs. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  07:53, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

I do think that today's dogs are incredibly paedomorphic or neotenous in many instances- but I agree with you that this has nothing to do with the ancestor dog. Are there any extant dog types which seem to you good models of this ancient dog? I'm thinking Dingo or possibly remnant native sled dogs...Makumbe (talk) 20:34, 7 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Over on the Paleolithic dog we have this, Makumbe: "3 Paleolithic skulls were found that resemble those of a Siberian husky but they were larger and heavier than the modern husky. For one skull, "a large bone fragment is present between the upper and lower incisors that extends several centimetres into the mouth cavity. The size, thickness and shape of the fragment suggest that it could be a fragment of a bone of a large mammal, probably from a mammoth. The position of the bone fragment in the mouth and the articulated state of the lower jaw with the skull indicate that this mammoth bone fragment was inserted artificially into the mouth of the dog post-mortem." Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  22:10, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

First paragraph of wikipedia "Dog"
William- I am still thinking of a way to edit the first paragraph of "Dog". I'm still not happy with that sentence "...modern wolves not closely related to the wolves that were domesticated..." as it is IMO a bit misleading for general readers. The Freedman study and its clarification by Larson is used by people to disavow that modern dogs are domesticated wolves (of some sort). Modern dogs are not necessarily domesticated modern gray wolves (although I think that is just current thinking depending on your definition of speciation) but they are definitely domesticated wolves of some sort and VERY closely related to modern gray wolves. Within the same percentage of genetic difference as modern humans are to each other. I have read both the Freedman study and the Larson synopsis and although at this point I am not fluent enough in genetics to argue with their discussion and conclusions I still think that it's important to note that they discussed 3 options for their conclusions. I've learned new words like "stochastic" and ILS. I am working on this and will be taking a general dog genetics class soon. Anyway- I willMakumbe (talk) 20:05, 30 June 2017 (UTC) try again soon- thanks for your patience, Jeff ThurstonMakumbe (talk) 20:02, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * 'morning Jeff. I noticed you have recently been active on the dog page and making improvements. The article you cite is incorrect - despite the eye-catching title the article body itself says that dogs are domesticated wolves. The first thing I learned in this game is to go past the populist reporting in online magazines and go to the research article that they point to - "science journalists" are merely journalists reporting on science "in their own words", which sometimes is NOT what the research shows.
 * Based on the control region of mDNA - the bit that mutates the easiest and is used to ascertain lineage (this is what scientists use to tell a horse apart from a frog) - some dogs are only one mutation away from the gray wolf but generally dogs fall about 8 mutations away. Some are up to 12 (Sotnikova 2015), and not just 12 mutations away from the wolf on a line that makes them 4 mutations past the average dog - these sit in a triangle 12 mutations away from the wolf AND 12 mutations away from the average dog. (No idea what this means!) Given that the Coyote is up to 20, that places some dogs as more towards the Wolf/Coyote ancestor. Plus we know there has been a lot of admixture between the ancestral dog and the ancestral gray wolf (Freedman). If you go over to Evolution of the wolf, the consensus is that the modern gray wolf is not "closely" related to the population of wolves that gave rise to the dog. You are about to learn - sometime in the next year when it is released - that the modern gray wolf is a fairly recent set of mutations that after the end of the ice age 11,000 years ago came out of one refuge and took over the rest of the northern hemisphere, replacing all but several of the existing wolf populations. Its longer legs and slim, gracile form allowed it to pursue the more abundant and faster game - deer and reindeer. The more robust but slower megafaunal wolves that depended on megafauna became extinct when their prey did (no more mammoth etc). It has been proposed that only their domesticated descendent remains - one population of these is thought to have joined humans. I am due to do a major refresh of the Origin of the domestic dog, but I would be wise to wait until these series of reports are released because they may change everything we thought. Regards,  William Harris •   (talk) •  22:35, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

William- I was using that article as an example of exactly the populist BS that comes out of saying dogs and wolves and their antecedents "aren't closely related"! I understand that the ancestors of the modern gray wolf and the domesticated dog weren't necessarily the same beast but they were definitely both wolves and I guess whether they were both canis lupus is up for discussion. That very much depends on one's views on speciation. If the dog and the modern gray wolf and split 9-34,000 years ago genetically then the dog is far more closely related to the modern gray wolf than the Himalayan Wolf which now looks like it split off genetically much earlier. It looks like a wolf no doubt. Just as the dog's ancestor looked exactly like a wolf. Both wolves is my point. As I say I don't understand genetics that well and after reading the Freedman paper I was struck by the amount of human interpretation that goes into the discussion and findings of these genetic studies. Almost like an art. So Freedman mentions 3 options for interpreting his data and decides in collaboration with his colleagues and other methods an odds number of correctness. The idea that the ancestor of dogs and modern gray wolves come from different (sister however- very closely related) monophyletic clades is what they come up with as the best interpretation. Using your example of mDNA mutations living human beings are about 7 mutations away from each other. yet we are closely related right? So my argument with the phrase "...not closely related..." is in a sense etymological or maybe simply grammatical- there are strong politics associated with "dog" "wolf"and "dingo". Yet wolf, dog and dingo are extremely closely related- far more so than horse and frog.Makumbe (talk) 23:43, 30 June 2017 (UTC) I am copying and pasting this from wikipedia "Dingo". I like the language a bit better and I think it sums up current thinking a bit better: "... In 2016, a study based on whole-genome sequences indicated that the dog is a genetically divergent subspecies of the gray wolf and was derived from a now-extinct ghost population of Late Pleistocene wolves, the dog and the dingo were not separate species..." The Wang paper was used as the citation. Is this quotation correct? I know you'll probably say "...divergent subspecies of the gray wolf..." is not 100%. I do like "...derived from a ghost population..." however.Makumbe (talk) 01:46, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Jethro! Who do you think put that in the Dingo artilce? Also in the sister article Dingo (taxon). Yes, based on Wang's work that is what he found. At no time have I argued that there were separate species. However, after what we just found about the Himalayan wolf, I am expecting "the dog" to be a Canis soup. It shows closeness to the gray wolf because the ancestral dog has interbred with the ancestral wolf to the point that it is difficult to tell who is who. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  02:56, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks- I guess I was a bit confused Jed! I can hardly wait for the upcoming study with the thousands of genetic comparisons!Makumbe (talk) 03:17, 1 July 2017 (UTC)


 * There is a lot to get your head around Jeff, especially with the experts disagreeing. You raise an interesting point with Fan, one I have raised over a year ago - click on here and see under the paragraph in the section beginning with Chris. Fan declared the dog a gray wolf, and this implied that anything within 8 mutations of the gray wolf was a gray wolf. Who has set that limit? Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  08:33, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for that William. That paragraph in the "Chris" section goes a long way to explaining the current state of things wolf/dog. I'll keep digging away.Makumbe (talk) 18:55, 1 July 2017 (UTC)


 * That opening passage in the dog article suffers from trying to be too inclusive of different points of view (by the scientists). The dog is or was a domesticated grey wolf, not just a wolf-like canid. The ancestral grey wolf, modern grey wolf and modern domestic dog are all members of Canis lupus. Even if the domestic dog is raised to species status its ancestor is still considered a wolf of species Canis lupus (unless and until there is a taxonomic revision). The debates over timing, number and location of domestication don't alter this fundamental point about domestic dogs being descended from grey wolves. I think this should be directly stated, not just assumed/implied.
 * Then the relationship between the modern grey wolf and modern domestic dog can be described as different lineages (or multiple lineages each?) that have evolved from the Pleistocene wolf (I prefer lineage over sister taxa as the latter implies a simpler dichotomy/polytomy). Maybe something along these lines: "The domestic dog is descended from grey wolves that became domesticated in hunter-gatherer human societies in the late Pleistocene. The modern domestic dogs and the extant grey wolves are sister lineages that have evolved from different populations of these ancestral Pleistocene wolves." The wording needs work and integration with the rest of the opening paragraph, but the first sentence states the important fact and the second clarifies the relationship between the ancient and modern animals. If you think this helps I can attempt an edit. Jts1882 (talk) 10:26, 2 July 2017 (UTC)


 * What were the different points of view by scientists in the opening passage? William Harris •   (talk) •  11:33, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry, there are none. What I was trying to say was that the paragraph was being equivocal about dogs descending from grey wolves, leaving open alternative points of view about their evolution from wolves in general. When I wrote points of view I decided it could be misinterpreted as me saying wikipedia editors were expressing a POV, hence the added bit about scientists. As it is the possibility of dogs descending from wolves that are not considered grey wolves is left open. This doesn't seem to accurately reflect the primary literature, where the ancestor is very much a grey wolf, albeit different from extant ones. Jts1882 (talk) 12:11, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

For me the problem has been the definition of speciation. How long does it take? How close can two things be and still be different species? A year ago I thought it was pretty cut and dried just using critical thinking- since 2 creatures can't be so closely related genetically and so closely diverged (9-34,000) years it would be impossible for dogs and gray wolves not to be the same species. Now I see that it is all far less straightforward and I am letting go many of my firmly held canine beliefs. Thanks wikipedia! My next problem is finding a dog today to use as an example of the original dog- Dingo? Moscow street dog? Pariah dog? AKC breed dogs are just a genetic and phenotypic mess. One problem I had with Wayne and Freedman was the use of a silly Boxer as stand in for the modern dog. Not really that typical and an inbred mess. I'm obviously no geneticist however...Makumbe (talk) 19:04, 2 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, the question of speciation becomes quite complicated with domestic animals. A similar debate has happened with the wildcat and domestic cat where there are some parallels. The IUCN Cat Specialist Group (who seem more involved in the formal taxonomy than the Dog SG) recently recognised the domestic cat as a species and furhther split the wild wildcat into two species. Given how the cats and wildcats widely interbreed (much more than dogs and wolves) the decision was a surprise and might have been partly motivated by conservation considerations (international treaties deal with endangered animals at the species level). A analogous situation would be splitting the domestic dog and New World and Old World wolves into three species (after Fan 2016), with the ancestral Pleistocene wolf assigned to the Eurasian/Old World wolf (a separate ancestral species is unlikely as bottlenecks are common in big carnivores). Dog domestication occurred earlier and there has been less interbreeding with the wild animals than with cats so the case for a domestic dog species must be at least as strong. But dog people and cat people are different and so might be their scientists. Jts1882 (talk) 07:20, 3 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Makumbe, Jts1882. Gentlemen, regarding the dog, this is the highest standard of discussion I have seen in my (paltry) three years on Wikipedia. You have both read widely - including a fair bit of my stuff on W by the looks of it - and I salute you both. Let me give you a very abridged history and I won't bother providing refs unless you require them.
 * Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Carles Vila (Spain) and Bob Wayne (USA - now eminent professor of evolutionary biology at UCLA known as RWK) did some work together. In a nutshell, they found that using (very short at the time) lengths of mitochondrial DNA that the dog is closer to the gray wolf than the coyote. Next, they proposed that either the dog is a descendent of the gray wolf and they separated over 100,000 years ago OR the dog descended from a wolf-like canid much closer to the present. The media and the scientific community seized on the first and neglected the second proposal. This is why we assume that "the gray wolf is the ancestor of the dog".
 * Nobody in the media asked why do we see skeletal remains of the dog appearing only 14,000 years ago, which would have dismissed the first proposal in favor of the second back then in the late 1990s.
 * In 2005, Lindblad Toh sequenced a big part of the dog genome - that includes not only DNA from the mitochondria but also from the nucleus of the cell. Without elaborating, she referred to the dog as C. familiaris. (To be fair, in the same year Wozencraft classified the dog as C. l. familiaris based on the earlier work of Wayne and Vila - the first proposal - and Wozencraft has been criticized ever since.)
 * Then in 2013 Thalmann discovered through ancient mitochondrial DNA that the dog was closer to the extinct Pleistocene wolves of Europe, the following year Freedman through whole-genome sequences found that no extant wolf was any closer to the dog and therefore its ancestor was extinct, and in the following year Koepfli through whole-genome sequences discovered the African golden wolf (Canis anthus), and that the Himalayan wolf was not lupus (but he left that for Werhahn to follow up on this year). Phylogenetically after the African golden wolf came what Koepfli called the "dog/gray wolf" lineage, not gray wolves. And the senior author in all of these papers? His name is at the end of the list of contributors - RKW. The phylogeny of Koepfli that reinforces Lindblad-Toh appears under Evolution of the wolf - these are both whole-genome sequences and there is no lineage of the gray wolf then yielding the dog.
 * Now for the heavy-weight. In the same year 2015, Skoglund sequenced the whole-genome of a Pleistocene wolf. He had extracted more data on the Taimyr-1 specimen than all of the previous analyses had done using modern specimens. He classified it as lupus, and found that it had diverged from the "gray wolf/dog" lineage before the dog and the gray wolf later split. We now have a Pleistocene lupus that is NOT a gray wolf (at least according to Skoglund.)
 * Then RKW began talking in the press about the "megafaunal wolf", so I emailed him and this is his reply: "Well we feel the data of mitogenomes and nuclear complete genomes support a divergence time between dog and wolf of more than 15,000 years ago, and that dogs derive from a variety of wolf that otherwise left no living descendants today. What that wolf might be called, whether it is Canis lupus variety or another species is uncertain because no formal taxonomic analysis of these past wolves have been done, but I think it is likely to be the same species (lupus) as several ancient DNA studies have shown dramatic turnover in carnivore populations during the late Pleistocene. I attach our paper discussing one variety of Canis lupus, the megafaunal wolf, in North American and attached is another that takes a parallel track."
 * In 2016, we have Kobmuller telling us that genetically the gray wolf is only 80,000 years old as had Thalmann earlier. In the same year, Fan tells us that the dog is a gray wolf, which implies that someone has assumed a standard for what is and what is not a gray wolf. Both papers had as their senior author - RKW.
 * So my question to you both is: "How confident are you that the gray wolf is the ancestor of the dog"? Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  09:14, 3 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that excellent summary. The quote from RWK seems to reinforce what I said above. Not surprising since it his mainly his papers I have read, but reassuring that I am drawing similar conclusions. I hadn't read the 2015 Skoglund work before, but is his position really that this C. lupus specimen is not a grey wolf? In the text he usually distinguishes the Taimyr wolf and the extant or present day wolves. In one place he says the Taimyr wolf lived before the divergence of dogs and grey wolves (without a modern qualification) and shortly after says the Taimyr individual is intermediate between dogs and grey wolves, but is he really trying to define what a grey wolf is here (i.e. not the same as Canis lupus)? I'm not convince he is from this paper, although perhaps he does elsewhere.
 * Both the lion and tiger have fossil records going back several million years and these are assigned to the same species as the modern animals. All modern lions and tigers have a much more recent ancestor, though. In the case of the tiger it is only 70,000 years (supposedly due to the mount Toba eruption). For the more northerly wolf the LGM could have greatly affected their distribution and modern wolves could have spread from refugia after the separation of the domestic dog if the older estimates for domestication are right (it could explain the New/Old world split too).
 * Overall, I see nothing that says the ancestor is not a grey wolf (except a very strict reading of Skoglund, which I'm not convinced is warranted). The main authorities seem to be clearly saying it was a grey wolf, but different from the extant wolves. This could change if more knowledge on Pleistocene wolves leads to splits in the species, but that doesn't seem to be the state of current knowledge. I think the statement that the origins of the domestic dog was as a domesticated grey wolf can be confidently made with strong support from the literature. Jts1882 (talk) 12:30, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
 * And that is exactly my conclusion Jts1882, when I advised on the restructure of the regional listing of Subspecies of Canis lupus with the dog to be included as a Eurasian gray wolf, found here. Then my interest in the Himalayan wolf (now part of the Tibetan wolf) and the Indian wolf developed further. We now have this year the Himalayan (and Tibetan) wolf quitting the lupus pack - things are not straightforward.
 * It is clear from Skoglund's first diagram that Taimyr-1 35,000 YBP is separate from gray wolves and domestic dogs that split later, at 28,000 YBP according to Skoglund in the text, and keep in mind that with 8 million SNPs this team has the most data. It is as clear as Koepfli's Figure 1 that shows the Himalayan wolf falling in with Canis anthus but it was left for later to highlight. Skoglund's professor is now working on the Taimyr-2 specimen and we will need to wait to see if they can extract nuclear DNA from it to hear further. You also need to keep in mind Koepfli's (and Lindblad-Toh's) graywolf/dog lineage depicted in the cladogram, which has secondary sourcing - Fan does not. To be fair, Fan has not to my knowledge been rebutted but he also did not include the referent Boxer in his phylogeny in Figure 3. I wonder why? Why did he illustrate only those dogs well-known to have crossed with Asian gray wolves, and then declare the dog a gray wolf?
 * If you are suspicious as to why the Boxer was excluded you can compare Fig 3 with the phylogeny in Fig 7 of the Supplementary materials (from here) where the Boxer was included. The main arrangement seems the same although a few wolves change allegiance slightly. Jts1882 (talk) 16:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks Jts1882, well found. I am happier now, especially when the latest grey wolf genome sequencing has convinced GL to sign off on what has been said - he is not easily persuaded. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  09:19, 6 July 2017 (UTC)


 * So, my position is as follows. I cannot in all honesty say that the dog is definitely a gray wolf, to me that is not NPOV based on what I know. If you wish to make changes to the Dog article, that is up to you and I will not get involved. Your best reference is VonHoldt in Serpell, currently Citation Number 12 in that article. At some time in the future, someone may come along and drop the Evolution of the wolf phylogeny under the Origin section and completely confound the lead, but that will not be me. I do not have a "watch" on the Dog, I sometimes drop by from time to time. Jeff and I shall await the release of the Larson "flagship" report some time in the next 12 months, which will be signed off by all of the key players and current contestants. Then I will unleash whatever they have agreed on. Wolves watch, and they wait. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  10:02, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Wow! Thanks Willam! I am not all that confident that the gray wolf of today is the direct ancestor of the dog. It seems from current scientific literature mostly approved by RKW that the direct ancestor of the dog was a form of Canis Lupus but even that seems a bit ambiguous at this point. Today's modern gray wolf has been sculpted by the ascent of man- not as much as the dog obviously- and the population bottleneck it sustained 20,000 years ago may have been partially caused by man the hunter. Anyway it has become the intelligent, independent and extremely man-wary creature we know today- very different possibly than the less human-conscious forms of wolf of the Paleolithic. The dog's ancestor was probably a form of Canis Lupus which we haven't yet found with certainty- possibly the Tamyr Wolf. We'll see if it's even Lupus soon I hope. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Makumbe (talk • contribs) 22:19, 3 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Humans have made the modern gray wolf wary, Jeff. However, take a look at the Greenland wolf and the external link clip. That is the behavior of a wolf that has never been hunted by humans and of the type that could have led to domestication. Lupus is a weird beast, and I could write a Wikipedia article on all of the things that just don't add up about their ancestry in relation to the dog. It is interesting that Wang 2003 found two populations of unknown wolves in China. One was in southern China and the other in Inner Mongolia. I assume that the population that can be found in Inner Mongolia might be the Beringian wolf descendants discovered through DNA sequences by Ersmark 2016. So we have two populations of wolves running about and not even classified as to what they might be, while at the same time trying to find the dog/gray wolf ancestor! There is still the possibility, proposed by others such as the noted vertebrate paleontologist and geologist Xiaoming Wang (who wrote the definitive Dogs:Their Fossil Relatives) that C. lupus is the descendant of the European C. mosbachensis, and that C. familiaris is the descendant of Canis variabilis, its Asian variant. Genetically, you could hardly tell their descendents apart. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  10:12, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Wolves seem to have an amazing adaptability and a predilection genetically to change in new environments. I read this very interesting paper on this subject. Wolves adapted to one environment seem to stick with that type of setting even when they disperse. I think I read somewhere that there are garbage-picking small human-habituated coastal wolves in Italy that are very different and don't mix with the Alpine wolves currently repopulating the country. So before the 20,000 year ago bottleneck who knows the great variety phenotypically and genetically of wolves? The paleontologists seem only to catch tantalizing glimpses- the geneticists hopefully soon (as you say) will close in.Makumbe (talk) 17:55, 4 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Jeff, released today: "The wolf reference genome sequence (Canis lupus lupus) and its implications for Canis spp. population genomics". The professor that gave us the draft genome from Taimyr-1 (L. Dalen) has just produced a full genome of the gray wolf as a tool for future research. This now joins the Boxer genome for the dog - we now have all three with plenty of data - dog, wolf, and Pleistocene wolf. Nice. But my question is, with Taimyr-1 and the gray wolf genomes now mapped, what are these people up to next? If you look on the list of contributors, you will find Larson. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  09:14, 5 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Hello Jts1882, the evidence from the study mentioned directly above is back in your favor, and states: "Nevertheless, since these two species are genetically very similar, the rare and/or private variation is informative for the differences between the two species." (The are in italics in the sentence is the author's emphasis!) It also indicated a split between highland and lowland wolves not seen before. (It is possible that this is the Himalayan/Tibetan wolf again.) Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  11:37, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Interesting! Under "Mapping, coverage statistics" wolves and dogs are "subspecies" yet in other parts of the paper they are "species". They "are genetically very similar"- not "not closely related"...Makumbe (talk) 18:37, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * It was GL who wrote the second phrase, and no doubt he has been persuaded and influential in getting the second phase included. This is my world, Jeff - one day we go in one direction and the next week we go in another! (PS: your comment on the Talk:Dingo page has just been archived today, meaning we first met a year ago. You will note that I finally achieved what we both wanted for that article, I just had to get the timing right so that logic could prevail.) Regards,  William Harris •   (talk) •  09:23, 6 July 2017 (UTC)


 * There is an understandable reluctance to call the domestic dog a subspecies of gray wolf because with 600 million of them worldwide it is difficult to talk about the wolf as a threatened or endangered species. The international treaties on conservation refer to endangered species. I think that is a big reason why the Cat People have come down on the side of the domestic cat as a separate species with the wildcat divided into two species. At the same time they have been conservative on the number of subspecies.
 * The wolf complex is even more complicated than wildcats because they have a larger geographical distribution and a far greater fossil record. At the moment the gray wolf (Canis lupus) formally covers everything from the Taimyr wolf, megafaunal wolf and other pleistocene wolves to the modern extant gray wolves and the domestic dog. If the species is broken up what do they do with the common names? Does gray wolf sensu stricto get used for extant wolves or should gray wolf sensu lato continue to be used for the whole complex? It's notable in reading various papers that a number of authors tend to avoid using gray wolf for anything other than the extant wild animals (e.g. Skoglund and the Taimyr wolf; the mention of it as a gray wolf is buried in the Supplement methods). Could there even be a possibility that the North American wolves become their own species (e.g. because of Fan Fig 3). Anyway this is a future decision for someone or other in the know. Is the IUCN Specialist Dog group actively involved in the taxonomical assessments? The Specialist Cat group are actively involved and the species entries all have an updated taxonomical section which is largely lacking from the dog entries. Jts1882 (talk) 13:26, 6 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Your observation is correct Jts, a number of researchers stopped using the term gray wolf in favour of the Pleistocene wolf once Thalmann 2013 found a closer mDNA relationship between them and the dog. Note also that they possessed a shorter snout, a wider palate and come in different sizes, including "dog size". Regarding Taimyr-1 and the gray wolf, all that I could find in the supplement was "the Taimyr individual is substantially closer to present-day gray wolves than to coyotes". I do not know if the IUCN Specialist Dog group is actively involved in the taxonomical assessments. Wozencraft's classification of the dog as lupus in 2005 is not widely accepted as many believe - go to Google Scholar and key in Canis familiaris for studies conducted after 2005. Genus Canis is a super-species, with all of its members able to interbreed. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  08:29, 7 July 2017 (UTC)


 * The part I was referring to was in the Supplementary Experimental Procedures: "During the Taimyr Peninsula 2010 expedition organised by the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, a partial rib (sample ID TX085) was collected at an ice complex site ... subsequent PCR amplification and sequencing of a part of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene [S1] established the rib as that from a gray wolf (Canis lupus)...". Of course, the determination is subject to review, but as a starting point the specimen is considered gray wolf.


 * 16S ribosomal RNA is great for telling frogs apart from horses. I concur with you; this is what they wrote. They originally thought it was from a reindeer and left it on a shelf for two years before looking at it! William Harris •   (talk) •  11:03, 7 July 2017 (UTC)


 * It would be useful to break the species up. If domestic dog and extant wolves become subspecies, what happens to all the tradition wolf subspecies? Promoting them to species provides room for more fine division where warranted. But who decides this for dogs? Jts1882 (talk) 10:21, 7 2017 (UTC)


 * I think we both agree Jts1882 that it is perhaps time to ditch the 3-tier Linnaean classification system from 2 centuries ago for something more useful in the 21st Century. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  11:03, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Makumbe and Jts1882, given this new finding you might like to draft something together for the Dog lead. You both understand the issues. You may use this page (below) to form a draft if you wish. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  09:30, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll give this some more thought. One thing that should probably change is the sister relation for modern wolves and domestic dogs, which is not consistent with the Fan Fig 3 or the phylogeny using the wolf reference genome in Gopalakrishnan (and Freedman didn't include American wolves). The distinct nature of the lineage(s) of domestic dogs and modern wolves needs to made but stated differently. Jts1882 (talk) 13:30, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

William- Thanks for your confidence. If Jts1882 can come up with something better I'd be happy. I'm not sure I'm ready yet to try to re-do the whole first paragraph and it seems to me that even this latest study seems to dissemble a bit- "species" and "sub-species" are used interchangeably. Does it ever really say "The dog is unequivocally Canis Lupus "? All of my firmly held canine ideas have been shaken and I really like the idea of the ancestor of the dog being some goofy short-nosed extinct Pleistocene wolf! Maybe not even lupus ! I may take a crack at it with the idea of de-emphasizing the "not-related" part. BTW- did you see my qustion about neoteny 2 articles above? Makumbe (talk) 02:38, 7 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Jeff, not quite right - the terms are not used interchangeably. Based on comparing the whole genome of the dog to the wolf - that is 2.2 billion base-pairs of DNA information - the article refers to "the two species" several times. However, when they say "we find that the samples that come from the same sub-species as the reference genome, i.e. dogs when using the dog reference genome and wolves when using the wolf reference genome", this means that when looking at wolf subspecies you should use the wolf reference genome and when looking at the dog subspecies you use the dog reference genome. This is the Larson-pack and they don't make mistakes. You may not be across Duleba 2015 - "Complete mitochondrial genome database and standardized classification system for Canis lupus familiaris." After forming a massive, consolidated mDNA phylogenetic tree of dogs extinct and extant, and wolves extinct and extant, she noted that the "dog" could be divided into six distinct haplogroups (which implies to me that each one could be considered a possible subspecies). She also mapped the Taimyr wolf to be "an ancient sister lineage".
 * Why not use species there instead of subspecies? It wouldn't change the meaning: use dog with dog and wolf with wolf. The abstract clearly refers to the subspecies when referring to the boxer dog (Canis lupus familiaris) and de novo wolf (Canis lupus lupus) genomes, but elsewhere they unambiguously use species three or four times. Jts1882 (talk) 12:08, 7 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Technically, the Eurasian gray wolf (Canis lupus lupus) is recognized as the nominate subspecies for lupus - rightly or wrongly - so that is correct. The Boxer genome was published in 2005 under the name of Canis lupus familiaris - you can only find its whole-genome sequence on Genbank by searching on that term - so that is also correct from a historical reference. What it should be now? - WH


 * Note also that Fan's Figure 3 is based only on the mutations of the Autosomal chromosome and not the entire genome. However, the latest study in Supplementary Figure 1 looks nearly exact, apart from no North American wolves. I have replied to your "hidden" neoteny statement above. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  09:24, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

So unambiguously the Dog and the Wolf are different species? Or are we still back at Evolutionary vs. Biological Species? What's your opinion?Makumbe (talk) 13:19, 7 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Jeff and Jts, I have no idea. As I mentioned above, the researchers have the full genome of the dog, the gray wolf and a draft (almost complete) genome of the Taimyr wolf. The Larson pack and the RKW-pack are cooperating together on the project Deciphering Dog Domestication: A Combined Ancient DNA and Geometric Morphometric Approach. The question is where are they going with this as a next step? Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  22:18, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

I can hardly wait! Because of you I also feel I have no idea- but in a good way. As I've said 1 year ago I was 100% sure dogs were 100% Canis Lupus! Now I'm with you in the "We'll have to wait and see" group... I'll still give it a go cleaning up that 1st Dog paragraph. I'll post it below first. Thanks William. Makumbe (talk) 22:33, 7 July 2017 (UTC)


 * If lupus is confirmed, from Pleistocene wolf to dog and modern wolf, that would make the lineage simpler to follow. Then we can take another look at the dire wolf, from which he have no DNA. In my opinion, from what we now know about the morphological adaption of lupus based on its changing environment, that too is lupus. We may be having to reclassify to Canis lupus dirus. (But I digress.....) Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  00:19, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Beringian wolf
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Beringian wolf you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Cwmhiraeth -- Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:21, 9 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Hello Cwmhiraeth, thanks for volunteering to review the Beringian wolf as a GAC and I appreciate your time. Some background to get you started. During the Late Pleistocene in North America, there were two types of wolf that were adapted to preying on megafauna - north of the Wisconsin glaciation lived the Beringian wolf, and south of it lived the Dire wolf. I have just completed raising the more popular Dire wolf article to FA level. The structure of the Beringian wolf is the same as the Dire wolf, the issues are the same, and approximately one fifth of the material and the references are the same. The only big difference is that for the Beringian wolf we have mDNA but not for the Dire wolf. You may find the Paleoecology a bit daunting, however similar to the Dire wolf this is the environmental context that gave rise to this ecomorph. I also understand that I have some expertise in the references and the text and that you are coming in cold and have an enormous amount of information to take in and assess - you are allowed to make errors! Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  11:50, 9 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Hello Cwmhiraeth, I understand that up there in the northern hemisphere, the holiday period is approaching. I am not concerned if the GAC review of the Beringian wolf is delayed while you take a holiday break and do not feel that you are subject to a time pressure - we will both still be here on your return. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  22:19, 13 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I didn't see your previous post, I don't think the pinging worked. I am not going on holiday in the near future and will continue with the review as normal. With regard to the Dire wolf, I did not take part in the FAC, but I think it suffers from the same problem that I have identified in Beringian wolf, namely inclusion of superfluous material, information that is not specific to the species but applies to larger groups. If we continue to differ on the subject in the article currently under review, I may seek a second opinion. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:05, 14 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Hello Cwmhiraeth, thanks for your reply and as you may have noticed by now, the matter had already been addressed. I must confess, the article does flow better. (I need to let go of the material that I have provided and trust moving it into other articles - putting on a GA reviewer hat I finally realized that I would have made exactly your recommendations!) Given that the dire wolf is getting large in size at 90kb (although 30kb of it is in references), the next time a major work is released I intend to reduce it in size similar to the Beringian wolf, prior to doing an update.( J Meachen is doing some work on the recently found Beringian wolf/Dire wolf hybrids, which will provide that opportunity. I hope that she can extract DNA: "The findings suggest that the Idaho wolves are not the same species as is found at Rancho La Brea and that there was some hybridization between dire wolves and Beringian wolves in southern Idaho"). Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  08:26, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Precious
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:47, 17 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you Gerda, this is much appreciated. Did you know that music is also my muse? Wagner is sublime. Teacher Corinne has many more lessons for me and I must now do my homework before calling on her help once again! Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  09:35, 17 July 2017 (UTC)


 * No, I didn't know about your muse ;) - I heard a sublime Wagner bit here, with the prelude of Lohengrin leading no break to the Rienzi overture, showing a surprising similarity! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:45, 17 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Many thanks; I will give it a good listening! Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  11:00, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Beringian wolf
The article Beringian wolf you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Beringian wolf for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Cwmhiraeth -- Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:21, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for your time and effort, Cwmhiraeth - for a while there I was dreading that the article would sit on the GAC list for months. Next stop, to call upon my friends at the Guild of Copy Editors to give me another lesson in good grammar! Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  08:54, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * My pleasure. I consider the prose to be of a high standard already and I thought your next stop would be FAC. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:59, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Not yet Cwmhiraeth, I have about two dozen minute grammatical/sentence improvements to make myself, then I will call upon Corrine, the coordinator of the Guild. Also, Dire wolf was cut back just prior to it being Today's Featured Article PLUS the start of Game of Thrones Season Seven (which includes fantasy dire wolves) yesterday - well coordinated. That article usually averages 2,000 visitors each day, yesterday it hit 94,000! Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  09:05, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Beringian wolf
I don't know, Corrine. I understand that it is the holiday season up there in the northern hemisphere and here you are still providing editorial services on Wikipedia instead of recreating! Some things have happened since your grammatical corrections on Dire wolf. The article achieved FA status. Yesterday, the dire wolf article appeared as Today's Featured Article and was timed to coincide with the release of Game of Thrones Season Seven, which will see the return of the "fantasy" direwolves. The strategy was to draw upon the interest generated by GOT to satisfy readers with a featured article. Dire wolf averages 2,000 visitors each day. Yesterday, it peaked at 94,000 visitors. We have done well.

Also yesterday, the Beringian wolf gained GA status. It was a "champaigne day" for the Ice Age wolves. So, I would like to call upon your skills again to get this article up to scratch. If you have the time at present, please feel free to simply commence editing - no need for us to chat unless something requires a decision. I trust your judgment and it will minimize your time. Let us see how much of "Lessons learned from Corinne" has been put into use! Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  11:59, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

More Ancient dogs
A new study on ancient dog genomes in Nature is making the news (I heard it on the BBC news on the radio). There are several reports describing the article (BBC, ScienceNews, Nature News) but the link to the which is in Nature Comm is currently dead. The evidence for older dates for the first association with a later full domestication (still pre-agriculture) seem to be getting stronger, but the number of domestications remains an issue.  Jts1882 &#124; talk 08:18, 19 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Hello Jts1882, I have been waiting almost a year for these people to publish their report in a peer reviewed journal so that I can get the info up on Wikipedia - currently it resides on Bioarxiv and we cannot really use it. It basically rebuts the dual domestication theory recently proposed, and the ancient German dogs clock the same mutation rate as the Taimyr wolf, meaning we have to push out the dog divergence from 40-60,000 years ago! William Harris •   (talk) •  09:31, 19 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that link - they have finally published it! William Harris •   (talk) •  11:15, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Refdesk topic
Hi William, I think you might be interested in WP:Reference desk/Science. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:03, 19 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks Roger (Dodger67). There is no correct answer to that one, however I have posted a link about the first hunting dogs. William Harris •   (talk) •  12:16, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Ancient Siberian dogs
Jts and Jeff, from our Russian friends: remains from arctic Siberia dated from 9,000 years ago that indicates "a fully formed, as a species, domesticated dog was present". Additionally they spell it out: "Moreover, it seems that the question of timing of the species Canis familiaris appearance and the question regarding the timing of appearance of the domesticated form of this animal should be separated." This seems to be the direction the big players are now taking - the dog diverged from the wolf, then later it became domesticated. The fun never ceases. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  22:23, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Some interesting background in that paper. They seem to take the position that the existence of different ecomorphs within Pleistocene wolves means that they were already biological species, with the dog evolving from the wild scavenger C. Familiaris. So when Rover is scavenging around the table he is reverting to his ancestral ecomorph. By their interpretation other ecomorphs, the megafaunal wolves and more general cursorial hunting wolves, would also be separate species at that time. One thing that surprised me is that they refer to the east Beringian wolf as primarily a scavenger of megafauna rather than hunter of megafauna. Jts1882 (talk) 16:50, 9 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I enjoyed the start Jts, when they stated that the Linnaean system was built on morphological differences to identify species, then went on to show that the dog has a morphology distinct from the gray wolf, and is therefore a separate species. I could not distinguish if they meant the Beringian wolf was a scavenger, or if they meant that it was also a type of ecomorph. The concept of a dog emerging long before its domestication is one that GL and his team are now actively pursuing. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  10:44, 11 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I read the paper- I agree with Jts1882 about wolf types suddenly becoming "species". I think that partially this is just literal and cultural translation- possibly in Russia there is more negative connotation to "wolf". This paper has some problems IMO- they use "species can't occupy the same niche" as a reason dogs are a separate species but to me that along with the IMO very iffy skull morphological comparisons is the same logic Crowther uses to pronounce Dingoes a separate species. A lot of the information on sled dogs is nonsense- especially the statement that wolf blood isn't a boon to sled dog function because this is not true- just look up "Alaskan Husky" or Iditarod Dog to see sled dogs with wolf blood. As I have said before and as is stated in the paper using skull morpholgy is a tricky business. Also- using the modern Siberian Husky as an example of a sled dog is a mistake in relation to morphology as they have been AKC'ed out of existence as working dogs. Finally- the part about there being more waste for dogs to eat during our hunter ancestors' change from large mammals to smaller ungulates is nonsense- that weird fantasy-world people enter into when trying to imagine the past. Ironically however (after this little diatribe of mine) I DO think that their conclusions are generally correct- although they may have moved the goalposts of Speciation a bit. Makumbe (talk) 20:54, 10 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I would not dismiss the Russians so quickly, they are very precise and articulate scientists, as you have observed Jeff. There is no wolf blood in the Alaskan husky - I did their lineage section in that article. They also looked at Siberian husky remains from 150 years ago - no AKC involved in those. The entire Discussion section appears to be a wrap up of what we know from a number of other sources, it is basically a secondary sourcing, and although we might not accept all that they are saying in that section I would not be surprised if we see other studies citing Pitulko 2017 in some work not too far in the future. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  10:44, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes- I agree- after I wrote that I realized I gave the wrong impression. The paper is an almost perfect summary of the way things stand at this point with what we know- right? Skull morphology and the interpretation and choices which go into using skulls as proof of differentiation don't necessarily convince me however. As far as Alaskan Huskies- I've had a couple way back when and both definitely had come from an outcrossing. They didn't bark, only howled; they had big paws and very un-huskylike straight tails. The breeder I bought them from in upstate New York said they had a wolf grandparent- on purpose to make them "better". I think that since in Alaska wolves and wolf/dogs are illegal it's more on the down-low. Makumbe (talk) 14:01, 11 July 2017 (UTC) I went and re-read the skull section more carefully William. This paper is very good as you say and actually talks about some samples of dogs out-crossed to wolves. I like that after all the statistics and examples they write that basically it comes down to dogs having wider heads and shorter snouts. They talk about this at length and basically say it is a matter of a ration of skull/snout and the "forehead bulge" of the dog which makes for identification. My problem comes from the actual picture they used to illustrate this- the "northern husky" skull is quite exaggerated with a bulging forehead and the wolf skull also is almost flat-headed to the point of looking more like a coyote. There are many example of far more ambiguous skulls of both dogs and wolves and as the Tamyr Wolf example shows with ancient samples identification is far less straightforward. I can guarantee you that there are dogs now extant who have skulls which would be identified as wolf. So to sum up- at this point in time it looks like dogs and modern wolves diverged 15-30 thousand years ago (possibly earlier) and that the exact ancestor of the dog was a specific ecomorph of wolf which probably had a shorter and wider head. Canis c.f. Familiaris, Canis Dirus  are possible candidates but there are others. This species/sub-species is not directly related to today's gray wolf but is very closely related. The Russians say species- other researchers are more vague and say sub-species of Canis Lupus. Still a mystery but we're getting closer.Makumbe (talk) 17:51, 11 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Also, keep in mind that the two scientists work for the Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, so this is a national perspective. They were also behind Lee 2015 and the extraction of mDNA from a 360k old specimen of Canis variabilis doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0125759 - they are not unknown. Regards,

I got it. I come across as dismissive when I don't mean to. I actually liked the paper a lot and found their conclusions spot on. I think at this point I'm going back to all the various wiki articles on dogs and wolves to read as many of the references as I can. The more I learn the more I see I don't know much!Makumbe (talk) 02:56, 12 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Then you will be completely confused like m!. FYI, another heavy genetics paper just released, too detailed to even mention, and its subject? The very short-nosed breeds of Canis familiaris, as they call it. I believe I see a pattern beginning to emerge now. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  04:54, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

William- Is there a link? Is this about modern short-nosed breeds or ancient? Curiouser and curiouser! Also- I'm on vacation next week and I'm going to read Fan and as many of the papers cited in that first paragraph of "Dog". I've read Freedman's study and Larson's summary and perused Thalmann- any suggestions for an order to read other papers in or which ones not to miss? Thanks- JeffMakumbe (talk) 02:00, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Also- I read this piece of fluff: and found that it explained current thinking as I now understand it amongst the anecdotes and magazinese. It references Gregor Larson as well as Boyko, Thalmann and Germonpre and explains the unknown wolf/dog ancestor. I'm sure you've read it- am I wrong about its relative accuracy? Thanks- JTMakumbe (talk) 03:17, 13 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Jeff it is modern breeds http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.04.057 but is heavy going. You are already across Fan, but there is Koblmuller doi:10.1111/jbi.12765 and Flower doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.04.015 (who's position is that ALL of the northern Holarctic wolves were megafaunally adapted during the Late Pleistocene. Both are interesting holiday reading. I am across the article above and it does reflect fairly accurately where things are at. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  11:44, 13 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Wow, that skull of the dog with squashed face syndrome. You can see why they struggle to breath, poor things. Jts1882 (talk) 16:56, 13 July 2017 (UTC)


 * It is shocking, Jts. Recently, one of the better known evolutionary biologists (Freedman or similar) hit out in an article at the breed clubs and recommended that the breed standard be loosened up to allow cross-breeding with better-suited dogs, because in evolutionary terms this is the end of the line for these types of dogs. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  22:24, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Hopefully the AKC and the UKC are on their way out. Criminal use of Victorian eugenics. Land races still used to work, that 75% of dogs who are free ranging, and mutts are real dogs.Makumbe (talk) 05:20, 14 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I concur Jeff, it is a load of elitist nonsense left over from the 1800s when it was thought that mankind emerged from the mud and evolved into the British upper-class industrialist. My last two have been Labradesians - the highly social, friendly Labrador crossed with the athletically muscled but semi-independent ridgeback, which is a mutt that is perfectly matched for me. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  08:34, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

I have 2 Jack Russell Terriers- rescues. One of them is such a perfect example of the breed that I became interested in how behavior is hardwired in the genetic code of the dog and its land race. Without any training he has taught himself to run down into any disgusting culvert or hole and bark a weird high-pitched eerie bark. Exactly what these guys are bred for- bolting foxes. He and the other one are also very prey-driven and are hell on rats, squirrels and cats- again just innate. I like that they are "real" dogs who live for a purpose (at least in their minds). It's interesting how much behavior is bred into them- and these aren't AKC dogs- just remnant terriers- the JRTCA is very strict about NOT linebreeding or inbreeding and allows cross-breeding- in fact dogs aren't considered JRTs until they are 1 year old- it's possible for 2 dogs from the same litter to not both be JRTs....Makumbe (talk) 16:29, 14 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Both my 'desians found the Jacks fascinating, and most protective of them. Can you picture a small, friendly Jack running up to a couple of adolescent German Shepherds - who were too young to know better - and were considering chasing it. Now picture coming around the corner 45kg of athletic muscle and a steely gaze: "Don't even think about it....." William Harris •   (talk) •  09:36, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * My JRTs would appreciate the help from your Labredisians- but they wouldn't need it. I've seen them harry and turn to quivering messes German Shorthairs, Pitbulls and other large dogs. One of my 17 pound Jacks has teeth as big as a Lab! He looks like a crocodile when grinning- I think his fossilized skull will look like a small Borophagus or Canis Dirus!Makumbe (talk) 03:32, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Beringian wolf copy-edit
Hello, William Harris – I just finished copy-editing Beringian wolf. I just wanted to mention that I changed "muskox" to "musk ox". I had always seen it as two words, and I did a Google search for both spellings, and "musk ox" yielded several million hits while "muskox" yielded only a few hundred. I was surprised that that WP article Muskox is spelled as one word. But, feel free to change it back if you want to. I notice that it is one word in "Woodland muskox", and I did a search for that and "Woodland musk ox", and the number of hits was the same, so I left it as it was.

I also noticed that in edit mode, some of the section headings showed the red cross-hatching at the equals signs on either side of the section heading, indicating that something is wrong. Perhaps the software detects the wrong size of the lettering of the section heading, i.e., wrong level. For example, should "Tooth breakage" be a sub-heading within "Dentition"? I don't know. Just thought I'd mention the cross-hatching. – Corinne (talk) 06:26, 22 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your time and effort, Corinne. As always, you are a delight to work with. I came out of that rather lightly, which indicates that I must be improving. Yes, I need to use a bit more of the nbsp, and I found the snd to be a new one. I am happy with Musk ox (none of these exist where I live....) Tooth breakage should be kept separate to dentition - dentition is related to a physical description, whereas tooth breakage is related to the canine's behavior. I am not sure what is driving the cross-hatchings, however someone technical will return to that once we commence FAC. Regards, William Harris •   (talk) •  08:09, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

RfA

 * I really appreciate your kind words. Thank you. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  06:33, 24 July 2017 (UTC)