The Japanese Wolf and Dogs

In this chapter, I introduce the relationship between the Japanese wolf (Canis lupus hodophilax, (Temminck, Tijdschr Natuurl Gesch Physiol 5:273–293, 1839)) and the dog, revealed by the whole genome information. The Japanese wolf is a lineage of the Asian gray wolf that once inhabited the southern part of the Japanese archipelago (Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu) until about 100 years ago when it became extinct. A recent study showed that the Japanese wolf lineage diverged from other gray wolves in East Asia around 17,000–40,000 years ago. The Japanese wolf is the most closely related lineage to the dog, and the Japanese wolf ancestor is estimated to have interbred with the ancestor of the East Eurasian dog. Therefore, the genome of the East Eurasian dog contains the genome of the ancestor of the Japanese wolf. The genome analysis of the museum specimen showed that a hybrid between the dog and Japanese wolf existed in the Edo period, suggesting that the dog and Japanese wolf may have had a close relationship in the Japanese archipelago. Although there are still many mysteries about the Japanese wolf, we expect that ancient genome data using dog/wolf archaeological remains from the Japanese archipelago will further clarify the relationship between the Japanese wolf and the dog.