A domesticated descendent of the wolf is the domestic dog (Canis familiaris or Canis lupus familiaris). The dog is descended from an extinct ancient wolf, with the present grey wolf being its closest surviving descendant. Prior to the emergence of agriculture, the dog was the first creature to be domesticated by hunter–gatherers around 15,000 years ago. Dogs have been especially adapted to human behavior as a result of their long connection with humans, resulting in a high number of domesticated animals and the capacity to live on a starch-rich diet that would be insufficient for other canids.

Over millennia, the dog has been carefully selected for a variety of behaviors, sensory capacities, and morphological characteristics. Dogs are divided into breeds based on their appearance, size, and color. Hunting, herding, hauling weights, protection, supporting police and the military, friendship, therapy, and assisting disabled people are just few of the functions they play for humans. Because of their impact on human civilization, they have earned the moniker “man’s best friend.”

Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist and biologist, established the two-word naming of species in his Systema Naturae in 1758. (binomial nomenclature). He classified the domestic dog, grey wolf, and golden jackal under the genus Canis, which is Latin for “dog.” On the next page, he categorized the domestic dog as Canis familiaris and the grey wolf as Canis lupus. Because of its upturned tail (cauda recurvata), which is not present in any other canid, Linnaeus regarded the dog to be a distinct species from the wolf.

The domestic dog may have descended from the grey wolf, according to a research of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) published in 1999, with the dingo and New Guinea singing dog varieties evolving during a time when human societies were more separated from one another. In the third edition of Mammal Species of the World, published in 2005, mammalogist W. Christopher Wozencraft listed the wild subspecies of the wolf Canis lupus, as well as two additional subspecies that made up the domestic dog clade: familiaris, named by Linneaus in 1758, and dingo, named by Meyer in 1793. Hallstromi (the New Guinea singing dog) was included as a secondary synonym for the dingo by Wozencraft. Wozencraft cited the mtDNA research as one of the factors that influenced his choice. The placement of familiaris and dingo under the “domestic dog” clade has been a point of contention among mammalogists.

The dingo and the New Guinea singing dog were deemed feral Canis familiaris at a workshop conducted by the IUCN/Species Survival Commission’s Canid Specialist Group in 2019, and so were not assessed for the IUCN Red List.

The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction catastrophe happened 65 million years ago, putting an end to dinosaurs and allowing the first carnivorans to emerge. A member of the order Carnivora is called a carnivoran. Carnivorans have a tooth configuration known as carnassials, in which the first lower molar and the final upper premolar have blade-like enamel crowns that cut meat like a pair of scissors.

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