Comments on: Bone-crushing super-wolf went extinct during last Ice Age

By: M. Boyd

M. Boyd — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:06:38 +0000

In response to Swintah…don’t you think cloning it would be slightly dangerous? And also quite possibly selfish as it might not survive in this new world.
Furthermore, would you like to be the person/s responsible for bringing something into this world that could potentially bring disease and or massacre?
Species which are extinct are like that for a reason…leave things alone.

By: london vet

london vet — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:07:51 +0000

Very interesting!
I have long been interested in to Wolves but have never heard of a Super Wolf!

By: Swintah

Swintah — Thu, 21 May 2009 00:02:24 +0000

Why hasn’t anyone asked the obvious? Why aren’t we trying to clone this thing? It would be awesome.

By: Raymond

Raymond — Wed, 13 May 2009 01:29:54 +0000

It looks like asian *Canis* diversified tremendously when they went back to their ancestral homeland. Grey wolves *C. Lupus*, Red wolves *C. rufus*, Coyotes *C. latrans* and Eastern wolves *C. Lycaon*.
And now we have these very unusual Beringian “Grey Wolves”.
What a wonderful taxonomic mess! Not to mention the differing placements of *C. dirus*.

By: Zach Miller

Zach Miller — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:07:48 +0000

It’s a Canis version of borophagines! I love those bone-crushing wolves. Great post, Ed.

By: tdelene

tdelene — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:53:35 +0000

Leonard may be the first to suggest that the ancestor to today’s modern gray wolves also led to a regional ecomorph in Alaska that was different from modern gray wolves — but she is certainly not the first to suggest that the common ancestor for N. American wolves (likely C. mosbachensis according to Nowak) came across the land bridge from Asia. Look all the way back to the late 60s and 70s for that idea. Nowak delineates a good case for several biological expansions of early wolves from Asia to N. America, an early version of which likely resulted in C. rufus, with subsequent colonizations and speciation resulting in C. lupus (he traces both back to C. mosbachensis).

By: Laelaps

Laelaps — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:48:09 +0000

Thanks for reposting this, Ed. I think this was the first NERS post I ever read, back in the WordPress days!

By: Lilian Nattel

Lilian Nattel — Sun, 03 May 2009 20:04:45 +0000

Very interesting. I can just imagine that landscape with the wolves and other predators that are now extinct.

By: JohnD

JohnD — Sun, 03 May 2009 19:57:00 +0000

The Dire Wolf was a native species. The other wolves were not. In some parts of the world where non-native species have been introduced they bring diseases, (squirrel pox in Europe, also a crayfish virus), which threaten the continuation of native species.
A possible reason for extinction?

By: MattK

MattK — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:16:17 +0000

Interesting. It begs the question though, what happened to the Dire Wolves if it wasn’t the disappearance of the herbivorous megafauna? I.e. if there was still niche space for a big stocky wolf why did the giant bone-crushing coyotes (Dire Wolves) go extinct and leave a space for the Beringia wolf? Maybe the ranges didn’t overlap at the same time?