Climate security/

Climate Change in America Turned Forests Into Plains, Dogs Into Wolves

It turns out old dogs — prehistoric ones, even — can learn new tricks. It just takes a few million years. A new study of American dog fossils shows that climate change and resulting habitat shifts drove native dogs, originally an ambush predator, to become the relentless trackers and pouncers we see today in wolves.

"It's reinforcing the idea that predators may be as directly sensitive to climate and habitat as herbivores," said Brown University's Christine Janis, who worked on the study, in a news release.