How the dog learned to "make eyes" to communicate with his master

The first dogs did not have the facial anatomy of our animals.

The first domesticated dogs were descendants of wolves and had not yet developed the musculature of their eyebrows.

After living 30,000 years with humans, the species has successfully incorporated cognitive skills to better communicate with us.

He even has "talents" that even monkeys do not have. Scientists speak of "forms of human communication".

"Make eyes"

One of them is to know how to "make small eyes" to their owners to ask them for food or their forgiveness, from a movement of the eyebrows that only horses and humans can manufacture.

A study by the Dog Cognition Center of the University of Portsmouth (USA) compared the anatomy of four wild wolves to that of six dogs. The work was published Monday in the magazine PNAS.

In addition, the behavior of nine wolves with that of 27 shelter dogs to verify that the movement of the eyebrows had evolved with domestication and that it could be directly related to the social interaction between dogs and humans.

The results show that unlike wolves, which have rare and irregular muscle fibers, dogs can lift their internal eyebrows, giving them great expressiveness to the eyes.

The only breed of dog that does not exhibit muscle movement is the Siberian Husky, considered one of the oldest dog breeds.

"The movement that allows the internal eyebrow to lift in dogs is driven by a muscle that does not always exist in its closest living relative, the wolf," says Anne Burrows, a researcher at Duquesne University. from Pittsburgh (United States). UU) and co-author of the book.

Evolutionary trait

Tests show that dogs have developed a muscle to lift the internal eyebrow after being domesticated by wolves.

This movement of the eyebrows makes the eyes of the box look bigger. The look is similar to what we humans do when we are sad.

Faced with this expression, humans react positively with our "best friend".

"This would give the browsing dogs a selection advantage over others and enhance the" eyes "characteristic for future generations," said Kaminski.