Scientists believe that humans may have influenced the evolution of eye color in dogs – study
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Dark eye color is more common in domestic dogs. Japanese scientists have suggested that humans may have influenced the evolution of dog eye color.
This was reported by The Guardian with reference to a study published in the scientific journal of the Royal Society Open Science.
Dogs were domesticated between 15,000 and 50,000 years ago. Since that time, people have consciously or subconsciously chosen dogs for certain traits.
In particular, it is about “puppy eyes”. In the course of evolution, dogs have developed facial muscles, with the help of which they can make compassionate facial expressions. This makes people want to take care of the animal and gives such dogs an advantage.
| Perhaps dogs are more likely to have brown eyes because of their perception by humans. Photo: ChinaImages/Depositphotos |
A new study has shown that dark eyes are more common in domestic dogs than in their “wild relatives”. In addition, people perceive such animals as more friendly.
The team of scientists compared the color of the iris of 22 wolves, which have different colors of fur and live in different areas, and 81 domestic dogs. They found that the latter more often have darker and even reddish eyes.
The scientists then took 12 pairs of images, each of which featured the same dog with dark and light eyes. They were shown to 76 people who were asked to rate the animals’ personality traits and to say how much they would like to interact with them.
The researchers found that dogs with dark eyes scored higher for friendliness than dogs with light eyes. At the same time, they were more often considered compliant, sociable, dependent on people, as well as less aggressive, intelligent and mature. Similar results were obtained in the re-interview of another 66 participants.
“We hypothesize that a darker iris makes it harder to distinguish pupil size and thus creates the illusion of a large pupil, which is associated with perceiving someone as more infantile.” – noted the co-author of the study Akitsugu Konno.
The association of dark eyes with immaturity can lead people to protect and care for such dogs. However, the study found that eye color per se was not directly related to the study participants’ desire to interact with the dog.
“I hypothesize that a lighter iris has some evolutionary advantage for wolves, but domestication has lost this selective pressure and some primitive dogs have developed dark eyes.” – explained study co-author Akitsugu Konno.
However, he noted that the later development of certain breeds may also have influenced eye color. For example, blue merle dogs have blue eyes.
“In general, dogs with dark eyes may have evolved this trait to send humans a non-threatening gaze signal.”the researchers concluded.
We will remind you that research has shown that dog owners care more about their pets than cat owners.
Read also: In Ukraine, they want to create a register of domestic animals: why is it needed?
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