Origin of The Domestic Dog - Lineage

Lineage

The earliest fossil carnivores that can be linked with some certainty to canids (wolves, foxes and dogs) are the Eocene Miacids some 38 to 56 million years ago. From the miacids evolved the cat-like (Feloidea) and dog-like (Canoidea) carnivores. The canoid line led from the coyote-sized Mesocyon of the Oligocene (38 to 24 million years ago) to the fox-like Leptocyon and the wolf-like Tomarctus that wandered North America some 10 million years ago.

Canis lepophagus, a small, narrow skulled North American canid of the Miocene era, led to the first true wolves at the end of the Blancan North American Stage such as Canis priscolatrans which evolved into Canis etruscus, then Canis mosbachensis, and in turn C. mosbachensis evolved to become Canis lupus, the Gray Wolf—immediate precursor to the domestic dogs. The particular subspecies of wolf that gave rise to the various lineages of domesticated dogs has yet to be elucidated, but it is thought that either an undiscovered extinct subspecies or Canis lupus pallipes, the Indian wolf, are the best candidates.