https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dire-wolves-were-not-really-wolves-new-genetic-clues-reveal/


Dire wolves are iconic beasts. Thousands of these extinct Pleistocene carnivores have been recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. And the massive canids have even received some time in the spotlight thanks to the television series Game of Thrones. But a new study of dire wolf genetics has startled paleontologists: it found that these animals were not wolves at all, but rather the last of a dog lineage that evolved in North America.

Ever since they were first described in the 1850s, dire wolves have captured modern humans’ imagination. Their remains have been found throughout much of the Americas, from Idaho to Bolivia. The La Brea asphalt seeps famously document how prey animals mired in tar lured many of these ice age predators to a sticky death. The dire wolves’ tar-preserved remains reveal an imposing hunter up to six feet long, with skull and jaw adaptations to take down enormous, struggling megafauna. Though these canids had clearly evolved to handle the mastodons, horses, bison and other large herbivores then roaming the Americas, skeletal resemblances between dire wolves and the smaller gray wolves of today suggested a close kinship. It had long been assumed that dire wolves made themselves at home in North America before gray wolves followed them across the Bering Land Bridge from Eurasia. Now some well-preserved DNA seems to be fundamentally changing the story.

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The new study, published on Wednesday in Nature, began as an effort to understand dire wolves’ biological basics. “For me, it started with a decision to road-trip around the U.S. collecting dire wolf samples and see what we could get, since no one had managed to get DNA out of dire wolf samples at that point,” says Durham University archaeologist and study co-author Angela Perri. At the same time, geneticist and co-author Kieren Mitchell of the University of Adelaide in Australia was also trying to extract and study ancient DNA from dire wolf remains—as were other labs that eventually collaborated on the project.

One of the researchers’ questions was how dire wolves were related to other wolves. For decades, paleontologists have remarked on how similar the bones of dire wolves and gray wolves are. Sometimes it is difficult to tell them apart. “My hunch was that dire wolves were possibly a specialized lineage or subspecies of gray wolf,” Mitchell says.

But the new evidence told a different story. Preliminary genetic analyses indicated that dire and gray wolves were not close relatives. “I think I can speak for the whole group when I say the results were definitely a surprise,” Perri says.

After sequencing five genomes from dire wolf fossils between 50,000 and 13,000 years old, the researchers found that the animals belonged to a much older lineage of dogs. Dire wolves, it now appeared, had evolved in the Americas and had no close kinship with the gray wolves from Eurasia; the last time gray wolves and dire wolves shared a common ancestor was about 5.7 million years ago. The strong resemblance between the two, the researchers say, is a case of convergent evolution, whereby different species develop similar adaptations—or even appearances—thanks to a similar way of life. Sometimes such convergence is only rough, such as both birds and bats evolving wings despite their differing anatomy. In the case of dire and gray wolves, lives of chasing large herbivores to catch some meat on the hoof resulted in two different canid lineages independently producing wolflike forms.

“These results totally shake up the idea that dire wolves were just bigger cousins of gray wolves,” says Yukon paleontologist Grant Zazula, who was not involved in the new study. In fact, the similarity between the two has led gray wolves to be taken as proxies for dire wolf biology and behavior, from pack dynamics to the sound of the animal’s howls. The dire wolf’s new identity means that many previous assumptions—down to what it looked like in life—require reinvestigation. “The study of ancient DNA and proteins from fossil bones is rapidly rewriting the ice age and more recent history of North America’s mammals,” Zazula says.

In technical terms, the new findings mean dire wolves may need a new genus name to indicate they are no longer be part of the genus Canis, to which gray wolves belong. Perri, Mitchell and their colleagues suggest Aenocyon, meaning “terrible wolf.” But the researchers don’t expect their findings to completely overturn tradition, and Aenocyon dirus would likely continue to be called the dire wolf. “They will just join the club of things like maned wolves that are called wolves but aren’t really,” Perri says.

The new findings also add layers to experts’ ruminations on why dire wolves eventually disappeared as the last ice age closed. These predators became specialized in hunting camels, horses, bison and other herbivores in North America over millions of years. As those prey sources disappeared, so did the dire wolves. “In contrast to gray wolves, which are a model for adaptation,” Perri says, “dire wolves appear to be much less flexible to deal with changing environments and prey.”

Nor did dire wolves leave a genetic legacy beyond the decaying DNA in their ancient bones. Although canids such as wolves and coyotes often create hybrids, dire wolves apparently did not do so with any other canids that remain alive today. Perri, Mitchell and their colleagues found no DNA evidence of interbreeding between dire wolves and gray wolves or coyotes. Dire wolves were genetically isolated from other canids, Mitchell notes, so “hybridization couldn’t provide a way out” because dire wolves were probably unable to produce viable offspring with the recently arrived wolves from Eurasia.

By 13,000 years ago, dire wolves were facing extinction. Evolving in the harsh, variable environments of Eurasia may have given gray wolves an edge, Zazula notes, “while the big, bad dire wolves got caught off guard relaxing in southern California at the end of the ice age.” But what might sound like the end of the dire wolf’s story is really only the beginning. Preserved genes have shown that dire wolves and their ancestors were top dogs in the Americas for more than five million years—and the early chapters of their story are waiting to be rewritten.

A bottle of red whisky

Don't murder me!

Don’t need to shoot them, even though they’re 600 pounds of sin.

When you see them staring at your window just say “come on in.”

Don’t murder me.

I imagine a human would have been a tasty snack for those guys.

I would hate to have to defend myself from a pack of them with only a stone tipped spear.

Something a little more traditional would be fun...


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You read my mind.

Skeleton I saw in a museum looked about the same size as a large wolf.

Have shot many wolves with 223 and 22lr depending on the situation. Have to watch your back though because when there is one there is usually more you don't see.

Anything you'd use for black bear.

Did you kill them incidentally when you hunting other animals, or were you specifically wolf hunting?

Didn't early humans also hunt in packs?

I came here expecting one of these, in which case I'd recommend AC/20.

They weren't Game of Thrones big. Size comparison I saw was about 30% bigger than modern timber wolves. Still a mess to deal with armed only with a spear, but folks then still managed to kill bears an mammoths.

Beautiful work.

I want me some puppies.

I can think of a few areas to release a few thousand of those things.

45-70 is rated for T-rex  I'm sure it's enough for a dire wolf.  

Winchester silver tip obviously.

I want one!

Read my mind!

A 45-70 with a .44 mag on my side, cast bullets in both, and let’s go hunt.

That's one hell of a shaft you have in your hand...

Why not have a .45-70 on your side instead of the .44?

Now that is Cool!

I imagine a group of armed humans were the top predators in their AO.

However, a lone human and the dire wolves?   I'll bet on the wolves.

I would like to have a pair as family pets/guard dogs

They were , what, about 150lbs?  



I'd feel fine with an AR15.

So they were really dire dogs.

In before someone splices the genes of a Dire wolf with that of a wolf/dog hybrid or a Malamute

The original breed of peace

Average was about 150lbs, bigger than the average of the AK grey wolf. Stronger teeth and jaws than modern wolves though.

Interesting article, but not actually all that surprising.

There are 3 jackals - Golden, Side-striped, and Black Backed.  All three are very similar in size, appearance, behavior, prey type, etc. For quite a while everyone assumed they were all close relatives.

Turns out that two of the three (Side-Strip and Black-Back) are cousins, having come from a common ancestor 2.5 million to possibly just 1.0 million years ago.  But Golden, his last shared ancestor with the other to is 3.5 million years ago, and is actually closer related to coyote, wolf, and African Wild Dog than to

So it wasn't surprising that people assumed based on morphologial similarities that the Dire Wolf was possibly a subspecies of grey wolf (of which there are about 20) or another wolf, a 'brother species' the way coyotes are rather than a subspecies.  Most people viewed them as a distinct 'brother' species.

"Wolf" itself isn't a well defined term.  Ethiopian Wolf and African Golden Wolf are two 'wolves' that are not 'grey wolves'.  But the Ethiopian Wolf is sometimes called a Fox and a Jackal.  Both are actually very similar to the coyote.  And it's just arbitrary that we adopted one native American name for the critter rather than another, or rather than labeling it something like Grass Wolf or something.

@alaskan_9974
@huntsman2448

They tend to be wider and more heavily built rather than taller.  Think Rottweiler compared to Doberman.

You are unlikely to look at the skeleton of a Rott and a Dobie and think one is much bigger.  In the flesh things become a bit more obvious

458 Socom.

When did they ever use spears that large?

It's not meant to be a copy of anything from the past. I just make stuff from my own imagination.

I would carry my dangerous game rifle, which is chambered in .416 Rigby.

.460 Weatherby

Came to quite Dead lyrics.

Beat like a rented mule.

Seems like 50cal would solve most problems

.22 short

@fisherman

Not really.  Dire Canid maybe.  They just had to dumb that down to dog because few people would recognize canid.

Just remember, terms like Wolf, Fox, Coyote, Jackal were slapped on animals before there was a good understanding of genetics.

Europeans saw their own Grey wolf.  They went to drier climates such as Africa and the middle east.  If it was a medium sized dog-like creature they labeled it a Jackal.  If it was smaller, they labeled it a fox.  If it was medium-large some guys labeled it wolf, other guys labeled it jackal.

When Europeans got to the North America they did the same.  They saw the 'timberwolf' and labeled it wolf - got lucky here - it is the same species.
They saw White Tailed Deer and Mule Deer - and assumed the were the same as Red Deer (which were just called Deer) from the UK, and so labeled them as 'Deer' - and were incorrect.
Later they came across Elk, which IS the same thing as Red Deer. So those they should have called Deer, but they already gave away that name.  Well Elg is Moose in Danish/Norwegian/Old-German.  And Elg are bigger than Red Deer. So they named it Elg.  But they messed the spelling up and we ended up with Elk.  

Later, they came across actual moose.  And should have named them Elg.  But Elg/Elk was already taken.  So they asked their native guides what it was called.  The guides spoke Algonquian, and told them Moose, so that stuck.

Same thing with coyote.  Initial settlers on the east coast didn't see them, but noticed them when they went in to the prairie.  They could have called them Grass Wolf or something like that, or could have gone with Plains Jackal or something.  In fact there are some records of them initially being called Spanish Fox and Spanish Jackal.  The Spanish themselves 'borrowed' the word 'coyotl' but their exact pronunciation/spelling was lost.  Our English translation of the spanish word was Cayjotte and Cocyotie, but eventually we settled on Coyote.  And then this became the standard Spanish spelling/pronunciation as well.

My answer if there is ever any question at all is .460 Weatherby Magnum.  But I'm an old fart and there are probably cooler big bore options these days.  If you aren't sure you have enough gun with a .460 Weatherby Magnum, you have just found yourself eye to eye with a dinosaur.

Neat stuff.

45-70 is always the answer

We were elk hunting in Avery B season, firearm time.  One in our group saw a wolf in the road, hit it with a .338 right in the gut, wolf went down the draw on the other side, left half his intestines  in the road.

That's a good wolf.

But unless you get a custom build, it is not available in a CRF action.  I love Weatherby rifles, but they are push feed.  Not ideal for dangerous game.  I'll stick with my Ruger Safari Magnum.

Same here

500 phantom

750 grain 50bmg bullet in an AR10

.460 will kill anything that needs to die...likely even some of the dinosaurs they have in Africa.

Based on what I've heard though, fuck actually shooting that round.