From this bunch, he would select the dogs with the shortest muzzles and mate them. To create such a breed, a breeder would begin with a group of mongrel dogs. For example, pugs are dogs characterized by a short, wrinkly muzzle. This process is accomplished through what’s called selection.īreeds are distinguishable by features known as variations. For instance, the pigeon breeder Sir John Sebright, who died in 1846, boasted that he could create a pigeon with any coloration or patterning in just three years. Over the millennia, we’ve gotten pretty darn good at it too. Humankind has played a key role in this process of differentiation as we’ve been breeding domestic animals since the late Pleistocene. Both of these breeds – and all other breeds of pigeon – descend from the wild rock pigeon. Just take the various breeds of domestic pigeon, like the English Carrier pigeon, which is identifiable by its abnormally long neck, or the Brunner Pouter, with its massively protruding breast. But did you know that they all descend from a single common ancestor? Different domestic animal species divide into breeds that are simply variations on a single species.
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