Dire wolves were the last of an ancient New World canid lineage

Frantz, Laurent ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8030-3885 and Hulme-Beaman, Ardern ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8130-9648 (2020) Dire wolves were the last of an ancient New World canid lineage. [Data Collection]

External DOI: 10.5061/dryad.63xsj3v16
Original Record Link: https://datadryad.org/stash/share/Zej2VR1mBD1GGVrDIlaMoShZyt9k4ZBDxxtW1hsCBN0

Description

Dire wolves are considered one of the most common and widespread large carnivores in Pleistocene America, yet relatively little is known about their evolution or extinction. To reconstruct the evolutionary history of dire wolves, we sequenced five genomes from sub-fossil bones dating from 13,000 to over 50,000 years ago. Our results indicate that though they were similar morphologically to the extant gray wolf, dire wolves were a highly divergent lineage that split from living canids ~5.7 million years ago. In contrast to numerous examples of hybridization across Canidae, there is no evidence for gene flow between dire wolves and either North American gray wolves or coyotes. This suggests that dire wolves evolved in isolation from the Pleistocene ancestors of these species. Our results also support an early New World origin of dire wolves, while the ancestors of gray wolves, coyotes, and dholes evolved in Eurasia and only colonized North America relatively recently.

Keywords: Dryad,
Depositing User: Data Catalogue Admin
Date Deposited: 26 Jan 2023 17:29
Last Modified: 26 Jan 2023 19:10
DOI: 10.5061/dryad.63xsj3v16
Original Record Link: https://datadryad.org/stash/share/Zej2VR1mBD1GGVrDIlaMoShZyt9k4ZBDxxtW1hsCBN0
URI: https://datacat.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/2069

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