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Asked by jjcandy to David, Luna, Mark, Melanie, Probash on 21 Mar 2011 in Categories: General.
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David Pyle answered on 20 Mar 2011:
Dogs are not directly related to humans. Both are mammals, but humans are part of the sub-group (order) Primates, which includes monkeys and apes; while dogs are part of the subgroup Carnivora.
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Melanie Stefan answered on 20 Mar 2011:
Yes, even reasonably closely. The body plan of a dog and a human are very similar, if you look at the skeleton, for instance. Also, dogs are mammals, just like us. The last common ancestor of dogs and men (our great-great-great-great-great-etc.etc. grandfather, if you wish) dates back abut 85 million years.
That’s rather more distant than, say, chimps (our closest relatives, with the last common ancestor dating back only 6 million years). But we are far closer to dogs (and other mammals) than, say, to frogs (last common ancestor 340 million years ago), grasshoppers (590 million years ago) and sponges (800 million years ago)
If you consider that life on earth began about 3.8 billion years ago, the separation of dogs and humans was really quite a recent event!
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Luna Munoz answered on 21 Mar 2011:
They are mammals like us. Some people believe they are related to us, in that they have evolved to become our parasites! It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t know if I believe it. These scientists argue that dogs have evolved for us to want to take care of them, but we have not evolved to rely on dogs.
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