An international team consisting of 49 researchers across nine countries has made a surprising discovery concerning dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus) an extinct form of canine which inhabited the Americas during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene epochs (between 125,000 and 9500 years ago). They were a bit bigger than the largest modern gray wolf but possessed larger teeth and had a more powerful bite.
Based upon morphological analysis they've largely been considered to be kind of like beefed up gray wolves but the new research, which for the first time sequenced their DNA, found that they were in fact more like distant cousins, far enough genetically different from other canine species that they likely couldn't have interbred, sort of like humans and chimpanzees. This may have limited their available gene pool and could have been a factor that led to their extinction.
It looks like they arose in North America and split from existing canines approximately 5.7 million years ago and remained isolated long enough to become so genetically distinct, unlike wolves which arose in Eurasia and who frequently interbred with other species, such as dogs, coyotes and jackals.
The full paper, Dire wolves were the last of an ancient New World canid lineage can be read in PDF form at the hyperlink provided and here is the abstract:
Based upon morphological analysis they've largely been considered to be kind of like beefed up gray wolves but the new research, which for the first time sequenced their DNA, found that they were in fact more like distant cousins, far enough genetically different from other canine species that they likely couldn't have interbred, sort of like humans and chimpanzees. This may have limited their available gene pool and could have been a factor that led to their extinction.
It looks like they arose in North America and split from existing canines approximately 5.7 million years ago and remained isolated long enough to become so genetically distinct, unlike wolves which arose in Eurasia and who frequently interbred with other species, such as dogs, coyotes and jackals.
The full paper, Dire wolves were the last of an ancient New World canid lineage can be read in PDF form at the hyperlink provided and here is the abstract:
Abstract
Dire wolves are considered to be one of the most common and widespread large carnivores in Pleistocene America, yet relatively little is known about their evolution or extinction. Here, to reconstruct the evolutionary history of dire wolves, we sequenced five genomes from sub-fossil remains dating from 13,000 to more than 50,000 years ago. Our results indicate that although they were similar morphologically to the extant grey wolf, dire wolves were a highly divergent lineage that split from living canids around 5.7 million years ago. In contrast to numerous examples of hybridization across Canidae, there is no evidence for gene flow between dire wolves and either North American grey wolves or coyotes. This suggests that dire wolves evolved in isolation from the Pleistocene ancestors of these species. Our results also support an early New World origin of dire wolves, while the ancestors of grey wolves, coyotes and dholes evolved in Eurasia and colonized North America only relatively recently.
Dire wolves are considered to be one of the most common and widespread large carnivores in Pleistocene America, yet relatively little is known about their evolution or extinction. Here, to reconstruct the evolutionary history of dire wolves, we sequenced five genomes from sub-fossil remains dating from 13,000 to more than 50,000 years ago. Our results indicate that although they were similar morphologically to the extant grey wolf, dire wolves were a highly divergent lineage that split from living canids around 5.7 million years ago. In contrast to numerous examples of hybridization across Canidae, there is no evidence for gene flow between dire wolves and either North American grey wolves or coyotes. This suggests that dire wolves evolved in isolation from the Pleistocene ancestors of these species. Our results also support an early New World origin of dire wolves, while the ancestors of grey wolves, coyotes and dholes evolved in Eurasia and colonized North America only relatively recently.
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