Rath on 08 October 2009
| Kasz216 said: No it still seems impossible to tell dogs and wolves apart genetically from what i can tell. http://ibiblio.org/pub/electronic-publications/stay-free/archives/22/james-serpell-dog-breeding.html SERPELL: No, you can't distinguish between dog breeds with existing genetic techniques. In fact, you can't even tell the difference between a dog and a wolf reliably. Some genetic analyses of mitochondrial DNA place the wolf in the middle of all the dog breeds, making the wolf look like another breed. Also, you can have two individuals from the same breed placed miles apart on a DNA map. In England, when they decided to ban the American pit bull terrier, they immediately had trouble identifying the dog. There were so many hybrids, the law had to be modified. |
Oh I thought you were implying there was no consistent genetic difference =P.
I'm guessing that a part of the reason is that the genome hasn't been sequenced for either the dog or the wolf, we don't actually know the complete genetics of either.
