Different ‘breeds’ of dog started emerging more than 10,000 years ago

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: Radio New Zealand

Dogs — in their many shapes and sizes — are considered one of the most diverse species of animals on the planet.

Most of these breeds are thought to have emerged during the 19th-century Victorian era.

But a new paper, published this week in the journal Science, suggests that about half of the vast diversity in dogs we see today was evident by the middle of the Stone Age.

A young woman hugs a brown dog with its tongue out.

Dog breeding by humans has created one of the most diverse species of animal on the planet. (

Wade Austin Ellis