Natural History

Posted in Extinct, Identify the species | 17 Comments

17 Responses

1. on August 25, 2010 at 9:49 pm Heather Smith

   I have no idea, but since you said “species” not “breed”, I’m going to guess that it is an ancestor of dogs and wolves from way way way back.

   I am more into the radiation of different types of dogs which occurred after they split off from other canines.

   The September/October 2010 issue of “Archaeology” has an article on early pre-columbian dogs.

   It quotes Robert Rosenswig of the U at Albany as saying that there was a major shift in the status of American dogs around 1400 BC.

   Before that, dogs were buried in graves, after that they were eaten.

   No idea why this shift occurred?

   As for the canine in today’s quiz: interesting that it has a white tail tip, but if it is known from bones, not a mummified body, how would anyone know what color the tail tip was? DNA is not quite that advanced yet, is it?

   
   
   • on August 25, 2010 at 10:40 pm retrieverman

     Hmmm. That’s interesting.

     It may have had to do with the development of agriculture.

     Wolves and dogs tend to be viewed differently in hunter-gatherer cultures than farming cultures.

     To have agriculture, you have to have a large number of people who do nothing but work the land. These people are not hunters and may not have access to quality protein sources.

     In Europe and Asia, this problem has been solved by the pig. The pig can be kept by small farmers. It fattens easily on excess food.

     In the New World, there are no native pigs and very few domestic animals. If you are of European heritage, it is likely that your ancestors ate a lot of pork as their main protein source.

     Dogs fatten easily on excess food.

     So dogs could have been the pigs for these Pre-Columbian farmers.

     I’ve not seen the article, but that’s my educated guess or “dubious speculation.”

     As for that extinct animal, it lived very long ago, and we have no idea what its fur looked like

     That’s all I’ll say right now.

     
     
   • on August 26, 2010 at 9:29 am Bridget

     Yeah, I’d like to know it too – how do they know it had its tail tip white?

     
     
2. on August 26, 2010 at 12:59 am Jackal73

   Epicyon.

   
   
3. on August 26, 2010 at 8:17 am Bridget

   It is a known fact that first nations ate dogs. But it is a thing we don’t like to talk about much, since our modern dog is a saint.
   Those early nothern peoples’ dog-feast evolved later to be more ritual, tho’ still in the 1800-century dogs were killed, cooked and eaten. You can compare that tradition to the modern american barbeque parties or european pork festivals.

   Have some pictures in my cache presenting those 1800-cent feasts. One presents the sioux indians having their dog feast, and another presenting some Hudson Bay innus in the mid-1800. It looks quite rural, but there’s some carneval-type decoration, religious signs and a heap of killed dogs – and also some happy and living tho’.

   
   
   • on August 26, 2010 at 8:29 am retrieverman

     Yeah, but what Heather is saying is they originally treated dogs as pets or some sort of totemic animal. Then they became major food source.

     LOL, Bridget, we have pork festivals here. In the South, they call them “pig pickins.”

     Dogs and pigs are unique among large domestic animals in that they don’t need vast acreages of grassland to keep them.

     You can fatten them nicely on garbage.

     Pigs and dogs are intelligent animals. Both could have become our closest companions.

     Dogs won out in most cultures. There are few cultures in the South Pacific that treat their pigs as we treat our dogs and fatten dogs for the table.

     But in most cultures now, dogs are not seen as food. East Asians are an exception.

     And not all First Nations people ate dogs.

     I think it was the Nez Perce people who refused to eat them. Lewis and Clark learned to eat dogs from other peoples on their journey west, and when they ate Nez Perce dogs, they got in big, big trouble.

     It’s in Mark Derr’s book A Dog’s History of America.

     
     
     • on August 26, 2010 at 2:05 pm EmilyS

       According to a friend, the Crow don’t eat dogs either. He tells a story about a Crow being invited to a Shoshone wedding and, as a guest, offered the honor of puppy soup. As a non-dog eater, he was revolted but of course could not refuse without causing terrible insult. He solved the problem by giving the soup to the Shoshone grandmother, thus scoring social points as well as avoiding having to eat dog.

       
       
4. on August 26, 2010 at 9:03 am Bridget

   Another explorer, Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874 – 1922) commented dogs superiority over other animals in the arctic areas, saying the best advantage dogs have is that you can feed a dog by dog’s meat. Even if you had the furriest and strongest Island pony on your tours in the cold North, you could’t make her eat another pony, and you would all die.

   
   
   • on August 26, 2010 at 9:08 am retrieverman

     That’s also interesting, because under “civilized” situations dogs will not eat other dogs. That’s where we get the “dog eat dog” idiom in the English language. Things have to be bad before a dog will eat another.

     Shackleton was right.

     Ironically, he and his crew wound up eating almost all of their dogs…

     ***

     My grandpa used to say that you could fatten three pigs by feeding one.

     I don’t know if this is true or not.

     But if you feed one pig a lot of corn (maize), it will produce enough waste to fatten two other pigs.

     I’m sure that hyperbole and exaggeration, but it shows how important pigs are and have been as a protein source.

     And dogs could have been in that position.

     If they knew, I bet they’d thank pigs every day!

     
     
     • on August 26, 2010 at 9:24 am Bridget

       – lol – they’d do.
       Pigs eat anything, as do dogs if they only are hungry. And after two days running they are. Dog trusts so much its leader. If the master serves the food, which happens to be dog’s he will eat. The habit seems somehow to be a question of culture, and of course, an environmental pressure linked. Not a real natural diet for dogs.
       Plant eaters never learn that, they rather die.

       
       
     • on August 26, 2010 at 8:02 pm blkgldn-n-labmix

       “But if you feed one pig a lot of corn (maize), it will produce enough waste to fatten two other pigs.”

       Also shows what a dangerous primary food source corn is!

       You can eat a cow fed with corn, with ketchup with high fructose corn syrup, a pop similarly sweetened, and potatoes fried in corn oil. Even if you eat a salad, the dressing has corn syrup.

       Blech, blech, blech.

       We don’t seem to mind, but we should.

       I’m sure pigs don’t mind.

       My dogs don’t seem to mind either–but I swear I’m going to find them a non-corn food one of these days.

       
       
5. on August 26, 2010 at 2:29 pm labpack

   Well, it’s not about learning. Herbivore’s teeth and digestive system is different from a carnivore’s.

   
   
   • on August 26, 2010 at 3:09 pm retrieverman

     Pigs and dogs are both omnivores.

     Pigs will eat meat as readily as dogs will eat bread and certain vegetables.

     
     
6. on August 26, 2010 at 4:32 pm Lane Batot

   Pigs couldn’t help ancient hunter-gatherers hunt or guard the campsite(although I guess they coulda helped with the truffle gathering…)–perhaps yet another clue that dogs were developed by hunter-gatherers, NOT early agriculturists! And the canine in the drawing? They ain’t extinct! I got some uh them in my backyard!

   
   
   • on August 26, 2010 at 5:11 pm retrieverman

     You have Borophaginae in your backyard?!

     
     
7. on August 26, 2010 at 4:32 pm labpack

   Yes, protein source in pigs’ diet is meat by-products.

   – And my pack also consumes fruits, veggies, berries, and even some mushrooms with gusto…

   
   
8. on August 27, 2010 at 10:17 am Lane Batot

   Ha! Retrieverman! I tricked you into saying what it was! Well, maybe what I have is not from a direct line of “Borophaginae”, but it might be a throwback……I call it a “Former Yugoslavian Weasel Hound”, except when I’d rather call it a “Venezuelan Monkey Hound”–people that make up and exagerrate AKC dog histories and standards are just people, like me, so if I want to make up stuff about my dogs, I should have just as much right to as anyone, right?

   
   

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