The anatomy of dogs varies tremendously from breed to breed, ... Like most predatory mammals, the dog has powerful muscles, a cardiovascular system that supports both sprinting and endurance, ...

Researchers dissected dog and wolf heads and found that the facial muscle anatomy of both animals was almost identical – except for an eyebrow muscle, found only in dogs, that allows them to ...

Dogs have evolved new muscles around the eyes to better communicate with humans. ... Evolution of facial muscle anatomy in dogs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, June 17, ...

Researchers think that dogs used this eye muscle to communicate, possibly goading people to feed or care for them — or at least take them out to play. And people, perhaps unwittingly, obliged.

What's remarkable about this finding, Burrows said, is how fast it happened. "Dogs popped up in multiple places 33,000 years ago. But 33,000 years isn't a long time in terms of evolutionary changes.

Domestication shaped wolves into dogs and transformed both their behavior and their anatomy. Here we show that, in only 33,000 y, domestication transformed the facial muscle anatomy of dogs ...

They found that the muscles required to raise the inner eyebrows and widen the eyes are present in most dogs—but not in wolves, which have a small tendon instead.

Article #18-20653: "Evolution of facial muscle anatomy in dogs," by Juliane Kaminski, Bridget M. Waller, Rui Diogo, Adam Hartstone-Rose, and Anne M. Burrows.

‘Puppy dog eyes’ evolved so dogs could communicate with us. Centuries of domestication have unintentionally yet radically reshaped dogs' eyebrow anatomy, making their faces easily readable to ...

Domestication "transformed" the anatomy of dogs' facial muscles so they could communicate with humans, according to the study. Dogs are able to raise the inner eyebrow intensely, while wolves are ...