Evolution: The Curious Case of Dogs

http://scienceblogs.com/observations/2010/01/evolution-the-curious-case-of-dogs.php

by tokenadult • 16 years ago

77 24 16 years ago

jerf• 16 years ago

"The most impressive beggars, however, get their own title: 'metro dogs'. They rely on scraps of food from the daily commuters who travel the public transportation system. To do so, the dogs have learned to navigate the subway. They know stops by name, and integrate a number of specific stations into their territories."

Score another one for science fiction. SF writers have talked about city-specialized animals emerging for a while now, and while you could certainly say that some critters have adapted nicely (pigeons, squirrels, depending on the degree of urbanization), dogs that know how to use crossing signals is, IMHO, a higher level.

See also their symbiotic protection of the inner city from the vicious dogs. Note that had the politicians decided to be rid of them, that would have been the end of them, so they actually passed a selection criterion there. Humans have, at least for now, accepted this breed as symbionts at the urban level. One could easily imagine them further specializing rather quickly, if they are not wiped out.

Retric2• 16 years ago

I think the best example of just how fast evoltion can be is the domesticated silver fox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enrLSfxTqZ0&feature=relat...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxFKKf5B2BE

scott_s3• 16 years ago

Thanks. I've read about that experiment before, and I thought it was fascinating. But I had never actually seen the domesticated foxes, and I hadn't realize how freaking adorable they'd be.

gfodor• 16 years ago

Anyone who's seen a new york city rat ascend from and descend into the cracks between the tracks at just the right time to avoid being squished can attest to this as well.

StrawberryFrog• 16 years ago

It's happening in London. There are pigeons who ride the London underground for years now ( http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003_12_01_london-und... ), and here's a recent photo of a fox on a London Underground Escalator. http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/805065-tube-fox-tries-to-take-a...

Hoff• 16 years ago

Attenborough and crows in the crosswalk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0

flipper• 16 years ago

Impressive, yes, but they're not the first self-domesticating species.

Cats pulled this stunt 10,000 years ago.

Qz2• 16 years ago

"This dramatic shift from the survival of the fittest to the survival of the smartest..."

It really bugs me when people use terms like this. Survival of the smartest is survival of the fittest. Nothing has changed!

scott_s3• 16 years ago

Selection pressures have changed, but, yes, it's still "fitness." It's just that the criteria of "fittest" in that situation has changed. I think people conflate "fittest" with "physically fit" which is not what the word means in "survival of the fittest."

Qz2• 16 years ago

What's funny is that the phrase itself is something of a tautology -- fitness in that context is basically having whatever attributes contribute to survival, so the phrase ends up meaning "survival of that which survives best" or even simpler, "survival of the survivors". Survival is the only measurable quality of fitness.

The other thing that can be confusing is that the timeframe of the statement is infinite. It's not saying "that which is still alive today is the fittest", but rather "that which is still alive infinitely far into the future is the fittest".

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

More importantly, people consider people to be apart from nature. Everyone would agree that dogs have undergone artificial selection- selection controlled by humans. But from a grand-scheme-of-things point of view, humans are just another force of nature, thus it's really just the same old natural selection, survival of the fittest. We just like to think we are something other than nature.

kqr2• 16 years ago

There is also a good excerpt about the evolution of dogs from Richard Dawkins:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertai...

russell• 16 years ago

>> you don't see many Chihuahua/Saint Bernard mixes

I'm not so sure about that. My sister once had a Chihuahua/Husky mix that she got from a Russian circus. She looked like a small Husky with brown and white fur. (The dog not my sister.)

pyre• 16 years ago

Though sometimes "you don't see many" is used to imply "because none exist," it doesn't literally mean so. Just because she had a Chihuahua/Husky mix doesn't mean that they aren't rare.

drtse4• 16 years ago

This reminds me of City by Clifford Simak, nice story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_(novel)

Dylanfm• 16 years ago

I'm part way through that book at the moment. It's a good read.

Evolution: The Curious Case of Dogs

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