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Illustration of a Pleistocene wolf cranium that was found in Kents Cavern, Torquay, England [1]. It is widely agreed that the evolutionary lineage of the grey wolf can be traced back 2 million years to the Early Pleistocene species Canis etruscus, and its successor the Middle Pleistocene Canis mosbachensis.
Its genetic diversity was higher than that of its modern counterparts, implying that the wolf population of the Late Pleistocene was larger than the present population. Modern North American wolves are not their descendants, and this supports the existence of a separate origin for ancient and extant North American wolves. [5]
In 2021, a mitochondrial DNA analysis of North American wolf-like canines indicates that the extinct Late Pleistocene Beringian wolf was the ancestor of the southern wolf clade, which includes the Mexican wolf and the Great Plains wolf. The Mexican wolf is the most ancestral of the gray wolves that live in North America today. [18]
The eastern wolf has two proposals over its origin. One is that the eastern wolf is a distinct species (C. lycaon) that evolved in North America, as opposed to the gray wolf that evolved in the Old World, and is related to the red wolf. The other is that it is derived from admixture between gray wolves, which inhabited the Great Lakes area and ...
In 2023, a genomic study indicates that eastern wolves have evolved separately from grey wolves for the past 67,000 years and had experienced admixture with coyotes 37,000 years ago. The Great Lakes wolves were the result of admixture between eastern wolves and grey wolves 8,000 years ago.
Reintroduction of wolves. Wolves were reintroduced to the park in 1995, after being driven extinct in the area nearly 100 years ago. It is estimated that approximately 500 wolves are present now ...
A California gray wolf, dubbed OR 85, in 2023. The wolf was fitted with a satellite collar to help the California Department of Fish and Wildlife track the state's burgeoning wolf population.
Beringian wolves possessed a craniodental morphology that was more specialized than modern gray wolves and Rancho La Brea wolves for capturing, dismembering, and consuming the bones of very large megaherbivores, [8] [18] having evolved this way due to the presence of megafauna. [53] Their stronger jaws and teeth indicate a hypercarnivorous ...