By studying genetic tests, scientists have discovereda new species of wolf that lives in Africa. Researchers have shown that the mysterious animal, known as the“Egyptian jackal”, often confused with the golden jackal, is not a sub-species of jackal, buta gray wolf.
The discovery, made by a team from the universities of Oxford, Oslo and Addis Ababa, shows thatgray wolves came to Africa around 3 million years ago, before dispersing throughout the Northern Hemisphere. This new wolf is a relative of the Hollarctic gray wolf, the Indian wolf and the Himalayan wolf, according to an article published this week in the magazinePLoS One.
Professor David Macdonald, author of the document and scientist at the University of Oxford, assures that the discovery of a wolf in Africa, in addition to beingone of the most important news for conservation, “raises fascinating biological questions about how the new African wolf evolved and coexisted, not only with the true golden jackal, but also with the very rare Ethiopian wolf, which is a very different species.”
Professor Claudio Sillero, president of the Canidae Group of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), who has worked in Ethiopia for more than two decades, has stated that “This discovery contributes to our understanding of the biogeography of Afro-Alpine fauna, a set of species in Africa of Eurasian descent that developed in the relative isolation of the highlands of the Horn of Africa region. “The rare Ethiopian wolves, he adds, are recent immigrants to Africa, and split from the gray wolf even before the newly discovered wolf of Africa.
There is currently no fear for the survival of the golden jackal, but the newly discovered wolf may be a much rarer species. The team believes that it is a priority for both conservation and science to discover their whereabouts and number of specimens.
