Illustration by Mauricio Anton Dreadful wolf
“The question now becomes: Is their extinction related to climatic and environmental change, or did humans and potentially other wolves and dogs and coming in assist in pushing them out?” Perri says. The new findings clarify relationships among members of the dog family, placing dire wolves ( Canis dirus) in a New World lineage that split from the gray wolf's ancestors some 5.5 million years ago, while further deepening the mystery around the dire wolf’s evolution and eventual extinction. “Dire wolves and gray wolves look super similar morphologically, but the genetics say they are not related closely in any way,” explains Angela Perri, an archaeologist at Durham University, and co-author of a paper on dire wolf genetics published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Rather than sharing close genetic ties with the gray wolf ( Canis lupus), as was expected from their resemblance, the dire wolves were evolutionarily distant cousins, long isolated in the Americas.
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In the first study of its kind, researchers have analyzed several full genomes for these creatures, revealing a few surprises. Where did they come from? How similar were they to today’s gray wolves? And why did they die out around 13,000 years ago, after surviving for hundreds of millennia? They roamed throughout large swaths of the Americas and preyed on now extinct megafauna, such as Ice Age horses and ground sloths.īut much about them remains unknown. Weighing around 150 pounds, the creatures were larger than the heaviest of today’s gray wolves.
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Scientific Nameġ2 ½" L x 6 ½" W x 6 ½" H 31.4L x 16.3W x 16.Even before appearing as fictional pets in the television series Game of Thrones, dire wolves had long captured imaginations. Jaw available individually as well, please inquire.
This means that dire wolves will get a new scientific name, Aenocyon dirus, meaning terrible wolf.Ī custom metal display stand is available below. While similar in body shape and dental morphology, the study reveals the two species were unable to interbreed with one another and suggests dire wolves represent a branch that split from other canids about 6 million years ago. Licensed to Bone Clones® by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, a portion of the sales goes to further their work.Ī study conducted in 2020 and published in the journal Nature, examined ancient DNA samples from dire wolves ( Canis dirus) and reveals a much more distant relation to modern grey wolves ( Canis lupus) than previously thought. Remains of over 3,600 individuals have been recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits - more than any other species of mammal. Their brain case is also notably smaller than their remaining canine cousins. Dire wolves had short, thick legs, a larger, broader skull and more massive teeth than the modern wolves. They co-existed in North America with gray wolves for about 100,000 years. Thriving during the Pleistocene, the dire wolf is not a direct ancestor of any of today's known species of canine.
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