Are all dogs descended from wolves?

In 1999, a study emphasized that while molecular genetic data seem to support the origin of dogs from wolves, dogs may have descended from a now extinct species of canid whose closest living relative was the wolf. read more

The dog is a genetically divergent subspecies of the gray wolf, with substantial divergence between the dog lineages as nearly as distinct from one another as wolves are from dogs, which may reflect more admixture and wolf ancestry retained in their genome. read more

Instead of all three dogs being closely related to one of the wolf lineages, or each dog being related to its closest geographic counterpart, they seem to have descended from an older, wolf-like ancestor common to both species. read more

All modern dogs are descendants of wolves, though this domestication may have happened twice, producing groups of dogs descended from two unique common ancestors. How and when this domestication happened has been a matter of speculation. It was thought until very recently that dogs were wild until about 12,000 years ago. read more