March 11, 2024 | Science News Explores via UVic News
While tail wagging may seem like the most well recognized trait in dogs, there are still questions surrounding why dogs do it. In the journal Biology Letters, Silvia Leonetti and a team of researchers reviewed past studies and hypothesized two possible reasons why they wag their tails.
According to the article, one hypothesis as to why dogs wag their tails more is due to humans responding well to the rhythm of their tail wags, resulting in humans breeding this trait into dogs. Another hypothesis is domestication syndrome – which would mean that the dogs were bred for a specific behavior, for example friendliness, and tail wagging was simply connected to that trait, as the article explained.
In an interview with Science News Explores, Tom Reimchen, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Victoria, said that he’s not sold on either hypothesis. Dr. Reimchen also stated that this area requires more research, particularly in non-domestic species. As he isn’t sure that dogs wag their tails more than any other species.
Dr. Thomas Reimchen is an assistant teaching professor and adjunct professor at UVic. His research interests include evolution, ecological genomics, predator-prey adaptions, marine-terrestrial nutrient cycling, and bilateral asymmetry and behavioral laterality. Dr. Reimchan explores this and much more out of his lab, the Reimchen Lab.
If you are interested in learning more about Dr. Reimchen’s research, we encourage you to check out his author page on UVic’s institutional repository, UVicSpace! Dr. Reimchen is also cited as a supervisor for many student’s theses and dissertations, if you are interested in checking these out, try “browsing by supervisor” in the Electronic Theses and Dissertations collection!
