It is natural for dogs to chew bones, so why do dogs prefer bones so much? There is obviously only a little bit of meat on the bones, and the bits of meat are eaten up quickly. But even so, the dog continued to chew on it, scraping it with his teeth, and finally stuffed the bone into his mouth and crushed it with his molars to crush it and swallow it.

I guess many people can't figure out why dogs and many other carnivores are willing to do such inefficient things - they would rather spend hours and exhaust their efforts scraping and biting, just to get this little bit. Eat clean foods that don’t seem to have much nutrition. The answer lies in the survival of the fittest in nature.

Many animals have eaten meat since ancient times, but only carnivorous mammals have evolved teeth that can be used for crushing and chewing, suitable for cutting animal meat. Dogs evolved from social animals, and until now they Still has the characteristics of this type of animal, so the evolution of dogs can be traced back from the tooth fossils of its extinct ancestors.

Dr. Joao Munoz-Doran from Ottawa, the capital of Canada, published for the first time at the Biological Evolution Conference that "Domestic dogs have cracked teeth with unique meat-breaking function millions of years ago. "descendants of carnivorous mammals" view. Dr. João Munoz Dolan and his colleagues from the National University of Colombia established the canine family tree and repaired the group connections of more than 300 dog breeds. By comparing the different diets of different breeds of dogs, they were divided into groups. For carnivores, polycarnivores (hypercarnivores) and omnivores.

The analysis results of the research team show that when the ancestors of carnivores first hunted in groups, their skulls had remarkable features, that is, they evolved into strong jaw muscles and sharp and powerful canine teeth. This can be said to be the survival of the fittest in nature. About 8 million years ago, when weeds were still overgrown, open habitats spread to Asia, Europe and North America, and large numbers of prey animals gathered together. This also increased the hunting opportunities for predators, but only With strong bite muscles and sharp canine teeth, these carnivores have the opportunity to hunt more and more abundant prey. If dogs want to survive on the open plains, they must live in groups and capture them with the strategy of "attacking in groups" prey, so many carnivorous species, including hyenas and some long-extinct dogs, such as dire wolves, are equipped with specialized teeth that can crush bones, and their masseter muscles have also evolved to be extremely powerful to facilitate chewing bones. .

Domestic dogs are descendants of carnivorous mammals millions of years ago that had unique cleft teeth for chewing meat. The genus Canis is composed of coyotes, jackals, and wolves. When humans began to settle, wolves followed and gradually changed their lifestyles, thus creating an environment for selective evolution and gradually forming domestic dogs. existIn this regard, although our domesticated dogs do not have those specialized sharp teeth, their jaws are stronger. Even an ordinary puppy can have a bite force of almost 490 Newtons/cm2, so they are also capable of chewing the maximum amount of food. The bones are slowly eaten. Of course, the most important thing is natural selection, which makes all surviving dogs have an innate desire to chew bones.

Natural selection often plays a trick on making behaviors that are essential for the survival of individuals and species particularly pleasurable. This may also be the source of the satisfaction that dogs get when chewing bones.

Warm reminder: Here we are talking about chewing bones, mainly big bones, which can only be chewed, not eaten. If it is chicken bones or puppies, you need to be especially careful and it is best not to feed them.