Now this is a dog !

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: schuyler
Really?

Yeah, really:

The dog and the extant gray wolf are sister taxa as modern wolves are not closely related to the wolves that were first domesticated, which implies that the direct ancestor of the dog is extinct.

Dogs and wolves are classified differently, otherwise the species would be either canis lupus or canis familiaris for both.

This is from your source.

He is right tho, this is not a classical taxa,
canis lupus and canis lupus familiaris are technically the same species as they can mate and their offspring can too with either,
hence the subterm could be applied to any dog breed which is very stable in its genetics (eg canis lupus familiaris 'instertstabledogbreed#1 and canis lupus familiares 'instertstabledogbreed#2')

Aand if you domesticate a modern wolf over the time, without any crossing, it will also become a familiaris due to todays logic..

a reply to: Drazzl

Teached one day to be denied the next day just to rediscover it next week:
Homo sapiens africanus / Homo sapiens eurasie / Homo sapiens europaeus / Homo sapiens ..?

'Pluto' ..

a reply to: Gargoyle91



S&F

A large wolf can bite down with about 1200 lbs of force. I cant even imagine what this beast could do. Kind of crazy when you realize that sweet little puppy you live with had an ancestor that was a nightmare creature at the very least.