Dire Wolves Split from Living Canids 5.7 Million Years Ago: Study | Genetics, Paleontology - Sci-News.com

Somewhere in Southwestern North America during the Late Pleistocene, a pack of dire wolves (Canis dirus) are feeding on their bison kill, while a pair of gray wolves (Canis lupus) approach in the hopes of scavenging.

One of the dire wolves rushes in to confront the gray wolves, and their confrontation allows a comparison of the bigger, larger-headed and reddish-brown dire wolf with its smaller, gray relative.

Other canid species that were present in Late Pleistocene North America include the slightly smaller gray wolf, the much smaller coyote (Canis latrans) and the dhole (Cuon alpinus), although dire wolves appear to have been more common overall.

“Instead of being closely related to other North American canids, like gray wolves and coyotes, we found that dire wolves represent a branch that split off from others millions of years ago, representing the last of a now extinct lineage.”.

They found no evidence for the flow of genes between dire wolves and either North American gray wolves or coyotes.

In contrast, gray wolves, African wolves, dogs, coyotes and jackals can and do interbreed.”.

The ancestors of gray wolves and much smaller coyotes evolved in Eurasia and are thought to have moved into North America less than 1.37 million years ago, relatively recently in evolutionary time.