{"id":567751,"date":"2025-11-14T16:56:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T19:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=567751"},"modified":"2025-11-14T16:56:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T19:56:56","slug":"wolves-domesticated-themselves-in-search-of-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wolves-domesticated-themselves-in-search-of-food\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolves domesticated themselves in search of food"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_567753\" style=\"max-width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright vertical\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-567753 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-notas-lobo-2025-04-800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"886\" srcset=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-notas-lobo-2025-04-800.jpg 800w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-notas-lobo-2025-04-800-250x277.jpg 250w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-notas-lobo-2025-04-800-700x775.jpg 700w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-notas-lobo-2025-04-800-120x133.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"media-credits-inline\">Cl\u00e9ment Bardot\u2009\/\u2009Wikimedia Commons<\/span><em>Canis lupus<\/em>, the wild ancestor of domesticated dogs<span class=\"media-credits\">Cl\u00e9ment Bardot\u2009\/\u2009Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Did humans engage with wild wolves (<em>Canis lupus<\/em>), giving rise to domestic dogs (<em>Canis familiaris<\/em>), or did wolves domesticate themselves by approaching human settlements in search of food? The second hypothesis was reinforced by statistical models analyzed by researchers from the University of Wisconsin\u2013La Crosse, the University of Virginia, the University of Tennessee, and Valparaiso University, all in the USA. Taking variables such as fertility and survival rates into account, the conclusion they reached is that some wolves began to scavenge for food from human settlements between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago. As these wolves grew accustomed to being around people, they became less aggressive. \u201cWhen females were selecting mates, they also had to select males that had a similar tameness to themselves,\u201d study coauthor Alex Capaldi, a mathematician at James Madison University in Virginia, told the website <em>Live Science<\/em>. Over the last 15,000 years, humans have driven artificial selection, choosing the most domesticated wolves for hunting and companionship and encouraging the less wild wolves to breed, producing a new species entirely: the domestic dog, which was used to herd cattle in early human societies (<em>Proceedings of the Royal Society B<\/em>, February 12).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wild wolves approached humans in search of food and domesticated themselves","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1651],"tags":[218,231],"coauthors":[785],"class_list":["post-567751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes","tag-ethology","tag-evolution"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":567757,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567751\/revisions\/567757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567751"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=567751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}