Extinct Japanese wolf may hold clues to origins of dogs

The extinct Japanese wolf (Canis lupus hodophilax) might have come from a vanished population of grey wolves in east Asia that also gave rise to modern dogs. Researchers sequenced the genomes of nine specimens of the species (the last one was killed in 1905) to find where it sits on the canine evolutionary tree. The results, which have not yet been peer reviewed, show the Japanese wolf to be more closely related to the ancestor of dogs than are any other wolves found so far.