TIL: Dogs were not domesticated from gray wolves...

Just something I learned today that I thought I would share. I was under the impression (for years) that dogs were domesticated from gray wolves, but fairly recent studies have indicated otherwise.

"Analyzing whole genomes of living dogs and wolves, last January's study revealed that today's Fidos are not the descendants of modern gray wolves. Instead, the two species are sister taxa, descended from an unknown ancestor that has since gone extinct."

Source
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wolf-became-dog/

It's clear that gray wolves and dogs *have* cross-bred occasionally, hence some of their closely shared genetic traits; it was these similarities that were responsible for the original assumption that gray wolves were modern dogs' direct ancestors.