The giant prehistoric wolf, also called fearsome, is an iconic animal. Now, a new study of the genetics of this wolf has surprised paleontologists by discovering that these animals weren't wolves at all, but rather the latest in a lineage of dogs that evolved in North America.
The paleogenomic study, which has been published in the journal Nature , totally rejects that there was any kind of hybridization between giant wolves and wolves ( Canis lupus ). In fact, it places giant wolves as very distant cousins of gray wolves.
The new findings also add new layers to the experts' musings about why these great wolves (or direwolves, if we continue with the nod to Game of Thrones), finally disappeared when the last ice age ended. These predators specialized in hunting camels, horses, bison, and other herbivores in North America for millions of years. When those prey disappeared, so did the dire wolves.
The study is the first to report whole genome data on prehistoric giant wolves.
"Genomic analyzes of ancient DNA represent an incredible tool to better understand the evolutionary history of ancient and extinct species," the authors explain.
Reference: Angela R. Perri et al. Dire wolves were the last of an ancient New World canid lineage, Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038 / s41586-020-03082-x, www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03082-x
