Humans greatly influenced the diet of the first existing dogs. Here’s what a new study says: when wolves became dogs and why.
We humans have really influenced the diet of the first dogs on Earth. But when did wolves become dogs and why? The first specimens appeared 30 thousand years ago, and were domesticated by man about 15 thousand years ago. It is not known whether the merit belongs to humanity or to the invention of agriculture.
Thus an analysis was carried out between the physical characteristics and the diet of 200 dogs and 200 wolves that lived in Siberia over the last 11 thousand years. It turns out that the first dogs changed their eating habits to have the company of man. Siberia was chosen, because the first dogs were domesticated there and then conquered the whole world. Two theories exist as to how wolves became dogs. The first is that thousands approached human settlements and then were domesticated . The second is that some wolves developed the ability to ingest starch, which allowed the animals to obtain more food.
Further analysis of the remains of Siberian dogs and wolves revealed another more complex theory. Early Siberian dogs were smaller than their wild relatives with a much more varied diet. In particular sea or lake food . Siberia has frozen bodies of water and it is not easy to get food in such climatic conditions. Here wolves have particular physical qualities that the first Siberian dogs did not have. Scholars therefore deduced that the animals then ate seafood or lake fruits, because they were procured by man. So dogs got used to hunting less and less becoming more and more “spoiled” by humans.
Here, the change in diet has also led them over time to new diseases and new parasites. Additionally, resulting in the death of domestic dog populations. The survivors, on the other hand, were left with a microbiome suitable for the human diet, confirming their status as pets.
- The first dogs? They ate fish thanks to us humans (focus.it)