Dogs arose from two populations of wolves

Dogs are genetically most similar to ancient Siberian wolves, but they are not direct ancestors and plenty of questions remain

Dr Anders Bergström and colleagues analysed 72 genomes from ancient wolves that lived in Europe, Siberia and North America up to 100,000 years ago, 66 of which were sequenced for the first time. The team compared these with genomes from early and modern dogs. The results reveal that, overall, dogs are genetically most similar to ancient Siberian wolves, although these are not direct ancestors.

The tale of how grey wolves became the pet dog of today has received a new twist, with research suggesting our furry companions arose not just from one population of wild ancestors, but two.

Dogs were the first animals to be domesticated by humans, an event thought to have happened somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago when humans were living as hunter-gatherers.