Thursday, August 04, 2011

Remains of Ancient Dog

Hello, Karstuhl here!

A very well preserved dog skull, 33,000 years old, has been found in the Siberian Altai mountains. It is one of the earliest evidence of a dog - those of us canines who live with humans. Scientists say, however, that it seems like this dog has not left any modern offspring. It seems like an evolutionary dead end. The scientists speculate that this is due to food becoming more scarce, at the same time as they say humans are much better hunters with dogs than without.

Perhaps this skull just belonged to a dog that was not good enough compared to the breed standard of the time, thus not being bred. This would also explain that it has no modern day offspring.

No comments: