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Puppy-dog eyes in wild canines sparks rethink on dog evolution

The eyebrows of the African wild dog have scientists wondering whether other dogs can make the irresistible ‘puppy-dog eyes’ expression.
  1. Gillian Dohrn
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An eight week old African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus) pup pictured in northern Botswana.

A young African wild dog demonstrates the pleading ‘puppy-dog eyes’ expression. Credit: Suzi Eszterhas/Minden Pictures via Alamy

“Puppy-dog eyes didn’t just evolve for us, in domestic dogs,” says comparative anatomist Heather Smith. Her team’s work has thrown a 2019 finding1 that the muscles in dogs’ eyebrows evolved to communicate with humans in the doghouse by showing that African wild dogs also have the muscles to make the infamous pleading expression. The study was published on 10 April in The Anatomical Record2.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01315-x

References

  1. Kaminski, J., Waller, B. M., Diogo, R., Hartstone-Rose, A. & Burrows A. M. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 116, 14677–14681 (2019).

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  2. Smith, H. F., Felix, M. A., Rocco, F. A., Lynch, L. M. & Valdez, D. Anat. Rec. https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.25441 (2024).

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