The Prehistoric Canidae Thread- Wolves, bonecrushing dogs etc

Adam Khor · 19-09-2020 4:13am

Canis borjgali, a new species of Pleistocene wolf-like canid described from Dmanisi. The study suggests an alternate view of the modern wolf's immediate ancestry. Also, augmented reality is involved somehow.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2020.00131/full

Adam Khor · 03-10-2020 3:44am

Healed injuries on a Canis chhliensis, a large prehistoric wolf, suggest it was cared for by a pack 1.3 million years ago:

https://phys.org/news/2020-09-wolves-million-years.html

Adam Khor · 06-10-2020 2:19am

Very interesting new study on what appears to be the first ever dire wolf fossil found outside of the Americas! The fossilized jaw was found in North-eastern China, at a site known for its hyenas, cave lions and tigers.

The find is significant because until now, dire wolves (Canis dirus) were believed to belong exclusively to temperate to warm climates, as no remains had been confirmed from the northern US, Canada or Alaska, where they were believed to have been replaced by the megafaunal gray wolf.

However, the new find suggests dire wolves at some point did cross into Asia, and that there was a population of them as far as north-east China. The new study suggests the dire wolf never became abundant in Asia due to competition with the already established hyena (Crocuta ultima), which occupied the same ecological niche. Eventually the hyena would have outcompeted the dire wolf into extinction. Instead, in North America where hyenas were absent, the dire wolf became the most abundant large carnivore over much of the continent.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618220306194

This also reopens the possibility that the frozen wolf's head found in Siberia last year could belong to a dire wolf, rather than a gray wolf. The idea of it being dire wolf was considered unlikely due to the lack of fossil evidence of this species' presence outside the Americas. DNA test results are sure to shed light on its true identity.

Chris_Heilong · 06-10-2020 2:43am

Just as a response to the first post.
A dog skull and a wolf skull are almost identical except for changes humans have introduced through selective breeding, there is no magic mystery as some are trying to find, Dogs are domesticated wolves, end of. Same reason they produce fertile young when mated.

Adam Khor · 06-10-2020 2:46am

Buford T. Justice XIX · 02-11-2020 2:17pm

Origins and genetic legacy of prehistoric dogs

Dogs were the first domestic animal, but little is known about their population history and to what extent it was linked to humans. We sequenced 27 ancient dog genomes and found that all dogs share a common ancestry distinct from present-day wolves, with limited gene flow from wolves since domestication but substantial dog-to-wolf gene flow.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6516/557

Adam Khor · 15-01-2021 3:30am

Dire wolf confirmed by DNA study as belonging to a different linneage from modern wolves- a very ancient one at that, having diverged from the ancestors of Canis over 5 million years ago.

The ancestors of the dire wolf would have evolved in the Americas, unlike the true wolves which evolved in the Old World and later crossed over. This makes the dire wolf the last known member of this ancient New World canid linneage, and justifies its re-classification as Aenocyon dirus, rather than Canis dirus.

What this means for the animal's appearance is uncertain, but it likely did not look like a scaled up grey wolf as usually depicted.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/legendary-dire-wolf-may-not-have-been-wolf-all#:~:text=One%20of%20North%20America%27s%20most,as%20mysteriously%20as%20it%20disappeared.

Dire_wolves_1280x720.jpg?itok=7sk_qOfy

The Prehistoric Canidae Thread- Wolves, bonecrushing dogs etc

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