The Pith: Wolves and coyotes exhibit geographic population structure. The red wolf may “only” be a coyote with a minor admixture of wolf, instead of a “real species.”
I like dogs. For various structural reasons I am not able to live with a dog right now (not to mention the required investment of time & energy). But the whole military dog storyline associated with the killing of Osama Bin Laden has me thinking a bit more deeply of the co-evolutionary nature of dog-human relationships. Whether dogs have theory-of-mind is controversial, but there’s no doubt that they’re relatively well adapted to operate with humans relatively efficiently as part of a dual-species team. From an evolutionary and genomic perspective dogs are also of interest. Like humans dogs exhibit a huge range of phenotypic variation despite relatively recent common origin. The species which they presumably are derived from, wolves, are intelligent social creatures whose natural range is very expansive indeed. I believe that the general dynamics of evolution and genetics which are operative amongst canids can give us insight into the processes which shape our own species. In part that is …
