the sponsor of this episode is Wix anyone can create a great website for free how scared would a modern inhabitant of planet Earth be if he met one of these ancient relatives of the dog amphitheater on a dark night also known as the bear dog these creatures possessed frightening dimensions with a length of 2. 5 meters that's an astounding almost eight and a half feet long and a weight of 500 kilograms that's a gargantuan 1,100 pounds or roughly half a ton this beast was really creepy and scary as heck imagine this monster is something like what you would get if you put a bear's head on the body of a giant dog with jaws they could easily chomp right through the bones of large animals this is exactly how the bear dog looked perhaps fortunately for us but definitely sad for them the bear dog disappeared from the face of the earth 9 million years ago long before the appearance of Homo sapiens perhaps if our ancestors had had the opportunity to encounter such a creature they would have been much less likely to have had the idea to try to tame wolves into dogs I must mention that despite the obvious similarity to a dog and the presence of a common ancestor the bear dog is still not a mainline direct ancestor of our modern pit bulls and chihuahuas but then which animal is it might be that the role of the forefather of all dogs is no less impressive a beast than the dire wolf so scientists named this largest predator of the canine family and not for the sake of wit but in all seriousness because of its great size about two meters or almost six and a half feet in length and 70 kilograms or about 155 pounds in weight it was not quite as fast didn't have the dexterity of modern wolves however its massive muscles and huge deadly sharp canines turned this dire wolf into a ruthless killing machine able to easily take down a mastodon or even a giant sloth this monster only died out about 16,000 years ago so interaction with Homo sapiens was inescapable alas this did not end in interspecies friendship later the traditional gray wolf appeared on the scene which man did eventually managed to tame gradually turning this heretofore wild animal into what we now know as the domestic dog or so everyone thought until recently but before continuing let me tell you some good news thanks to our partners from Wix the riddle channel now has its own personal website if you also want to make a website for yourself but don't know how to program this is not a problem with Wix website builder they make sure that website creation is fun convenient and free go to Wix and create your website just click on the link in the description below the video but if you need a mega super cool website you can purchase a premium account and then the possibilities are almost limitless all problems with hosting male domain Wix takes care of everything Wix is even used by professional web developers saving them time and making them more money go to the website and see for yourself Wix calm is not just a website builder but a leading cloud platform with millions of users all around the world and now back to our intriguing mystery the origin of our pet dog says coming from wolves has for quite some time been considered as an undisputed truth authorities on this matter explain this sequence of events thusly ancient peoples picked up some wolf puppies somewhere raised them for their own needs and as a result this spirited predator became an affectionate and obedient animal but a group of American geneticists now has a different opinion these scientists analyst the genomes of more than one and a half thousand dogs belonging to 161 different breeds as it turns out despite the external differences the dog studied were all basically the same genetically however surprisingly no close genetic link was found with wolves such a turn of events led researchers to the idea that these animals at some point developed separately from each other naturally and can be referred to as distant cousins descended from some common progenitor of the predatory mammals in short these scientists suggests that man has never tamed the wolf but immediately took up the domestication of the dog and the misconceptions regarding the heretofore proposed ultimate genetic paternity provided by wolves are explained by the fact that even those separate species these animals sometimes made it confusing geneticists all over the world the oldest dog known to science whose remains were found in present-day Belgium lived some thirty one thousand seven hundred years ago in appearance it's somewhat resembles a Siberian Husky only with a size somewhat closer to that of a large Shepherd and with slightly enlarged teeth with which it nod on the carcasses of musk oxen horses and deer whether it had a master who walked their anti blue V and pet out the front door of their cave every morning is still unknown as for the timing of exactly when domestication occurred scientists simply cannot agree referring to a range of different time intervals from between ten to forty thousand years ago but the most interesting thing is how this friendship between man and dog began indeed many scholars believe that people didn't simply tame our four-fingered friends they were domesticated some of these puppies learned that they didn't have to compete with Homo sapiens for prey a young pup perhaps quickly learned that it was much easy - just wag its tail drop its ears and show its human caregiver that it was ready to carry out commands and lo and behold its master would then give their newfound canine Chum everything it wanted thus tens of thousands of years ago dogs began to help people hunt game and graze cattle protecting the ladder from other predators over time our ancestors when breeding dogs learned how to select for the more desirable or useful qualities and such animals thanks to this for example in ancient Egypt some early hunting dogs were bred to have vastly superior speed allowing them to catch the fast and elusive gazelle in another ancient state Rome people decided to extend the functionality of the dog turning these pets from hunters shepherds and Watchmen into real fighters these military dogs were hit against a variety of wild animals often turning the entire affair into a royal bloody mess however with the fall of the Roman Empire the animals became wild terrifying local people's and giving rise to many myths and legends regarding the so called werewolves it wouldn't be surprising if the doggy heroes of this ancient lore might be representatives of the giant Tibetan Mastiff breed the first recorded references - which date back to 1120 1 BC once the dog finally found its way to the British Isles this Tibetan giant eventually dropped its thick coat of fur and turned into the more well-known English Mastiff the largest breed of dog in the world today the height of this champ at the withers that is from the pause to the highest point on its spine often reaches 90 centimeters or about 35 inches that's almost a yard and the mass of this gargantuan feast regularly reaches over 100 kilograms or 220 pounds but a famous English Mastiff named Zorba really outdid himself triumphing with 2. 5 meters or 8.
2 feet in length 94 centimeters or 37 inches at the withers with this amazing canine weighing in at the time of the record a little more than 155 kilograms or 343 pounds his record remains unbeaten to this day this English breed of giants must however share its place of honor with another Colossus the Great Dane this is due to its height which at the withers can also reach an astounding 90 centimeters or 3 feet that's one seriously big [ __ ] and yet some German record breakers beat even this height with a couple of pooches named Zeus and George who exceeded even the 1 meter mark unfortunately it's no longer possible to even take a photo with these wonderful world-famous gigantic dogs as these champions left this mortal coil at a fairly young age such as sudden death among these hero dogs is quite a common phenomenon according to one doctor Cornelia Kraus from the University of göttingen after analyzing information on dogs from 74 different breeds dr. Krauss came to the conclusion that the reasons for this are just the same for all of our four footed friends according to the assumptions of the researcher life expectancy can even be calculated for every two kilograms of animal mass we must - one month from their potential lifespan according to dr.
