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Beringian wolf
The Beringian wolf is an extinct population of wolf (Canis lupus) that lived during the Ice Age. It inhabited what is now modern-day Alaska, Yukon, and northern British Columbia. Some of these wolves survived well into the Holocene. The Beringian wolf is an ecomorph of the gray wolf and has been comprehensively studied using a range of scientific techniques, yielding new information on their prey species and feeding behaviors. It has been determined that these wolves are morphologically distinct from modern North American wolves and genetically basal to most modern and extinct wolves. The Beringian wolf has not been assigned a subspecies classification and its relationship with the extinct European cave wolf (Canis lupus spelaeus) is not clear.
The Beringian wolf was similar in size to the modern Alaskan Interior wolf (Canis lupus pambasileus) and other Late Pleistocene gray wolves but more robust and with stronger jaws and teeth, a broader palate, and larger carnassial teeth relative to its skull size. In comparison with the Beringian wolf, the more southerly occurring dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus) was the same size but heavier and with a more robust skull and dentition. The unique adaptation of the skull and dentition of the Beringian wolf allowed it to produce relatively large bite forces, grapple with large struggling prey, and therefore made predation and scavenging on Pleistocene megafauna possible. The Beringian wolf preyed most often on horse and steppe bison, and also on caribou, mammoth, and woodland muskox.
At the close of the Ice Age, with the loss of cold and dry conditions and the extinction of much of its prey, the Beringian wolf became extinct. The extinction of its prey has been attributed to the impact of climate change, competition with other species, including humans, or a combination of both factors. Local genetic populations were replaced by others from within the same species or of the same genus. Of the North American wolves, only the ancestor of the modern North American gray wolf survived. The remains of ancient wolves with similar skulls and dentition have been found in western Beringia (northeastern Siberia). In 2016, a study showed that some of the wolves now living in remote corners of China and Mongolia share a common maternal ancestor with one 28,000-year-old eastern Beringian wolf specimen.
Starting in the 1930s, representatives of the American Museum of Natural History worked with the Alaska College and the Fairbanks Exploration Company to collect specimens uncovered by hydraulic gold dredging near Fairbanks, Alaska. Childs Frick was a research associate in paleontology with the American Museum who had been working in the Fairbanks region. In 1930, he published an article which contained a list of "extinct Pleistocene mammals of Alaska-Yukon". This list included one specimen of what he believed to be a new subspecies which he named Aenocyon dirus alaskensis – the Alaskan dire wolf. The American museum referred to these as a typical Pleistocene species in Fairbanks. However, no type specimen, description nor exact location was provided, and because dire wolves had not been found this far north this name was later proposed as nomen nudum (invalid) by the paleontologist Ronald M. Nowak. Between 1932 and 1953 twenty-eight wolf skulls were recovered from the Ester, Cripple, Engineer, and Little Eldorado creeks located north and west of Fairbanks. The skulls were thought to be 10,000 years old. The geologist and paleontologist Theodore Galusha, who helped amass the Frick collections of fossil mammals at the American Museum of Natural History, worked on the wolf skulls over a number of years and noted that, compared with modern wolves, they were "short-faced". The paleontologist Stanley John Olsen continued Galusha's work with the short-faced wolf skulls, and in 1985, based on their morphology, he classified them as Canis lupus (gray wolf).
Gray wolves were widely distributed across North America during both the Pleistocene and historic period. In 2007 Jennifer Leonard undertook a study based on the genetic, morphology, and stable isotope analyses of seventy-four Beringian wolf specimens from Alaska and the Yukon that revealed the genetic relationships, prey species, and feeding behavior of prehistoric wolves, and supported the classification of this wolf as C. lupus. The specimens were not assigned a subspecies classification by Leonard, who referred to these as "eastern Beringian wolves". A subspecies was possibly not assigned because the relationship between the Beringian wolf and the extinct European cave wolf (C. l. spelaeus) is not clear. Beringia was once an area of land that spanned the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Sea, joining Eurasia to North America. Eastern Beringia included what is today Alaska and the Yukon.
DNA sequences can be mapped to reveal a phylogenetic tree that represents evolutionary relationships, with each branch point representing the divergence of two lineages from a common ancestor. On this tree the term basal is used to describe a lineage that forms a branch diverging nearest to the common ancestor. Wolf genetic sequencing has found the Beringian wolf to be basal to all other gray wolves except for the modern Indian gray wolf and Himalayan wolf.
As of 2020, the oldest known intact wolf remains belongs to a mummified pup dated 56,000 YBP that was recovered from the permafrost along a small tributary of Last Chance Creek near Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. A DNA analysis showed that it belonged to the Beringian wolf clade, that the most recent common ancestor of this clade dates to 86,700–67,500 YBP, and that this clade was basal to all other wolves except for the Himalayan wolf.
A haplotype is a group of genes found in an organism that are inherited together from one of their parents. A haplogroup is a group of similar haplotypes that share a single mutation inherited from their common ancestor. Mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) passes along the maternal line and can date back thousands of years. A 2005 study compared the mitochondrial DNA sequences of modern wolves with those from thirty-four specimens dated between 1856 and 1915. The historic population was found to possess twice the genetic diversity of modern wolves, which suggests that the mDNA diversity of the wolves eradicated from the western US was more than twice that of the modern population. A 2007 study compared mDNA sequences of modern wolves with those from Beringian wolves. The twenty Beringian wolves yielded sixteen haplotypes that could not be found in modern wolves, compared with seven haplotypes that were found in thirty-two modern Alaskan and Yukon wolves. This finding indicates that Beringian wolves were genetically distinct from modern wolves and possessed greater genetic diversity, and that there once existed in North America a larger wolf population than today. Modern Alaskan wolves have not descended from the Beringian wolves but from Eurasian wolves which migrated into North America during the Holocene.
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Beringian wolf
The Beringian wolf is an extinct population of wolf (Canis lupus) that lived during the Ice Age. It inhabited what is now modern-day Alaska, Yukon, and northern British Columbia. Some of these wolves survived well into the Holocene. The Beringian wolf is an ecomorph of the gray wolf and has been comprehensively studied using a range of scientific techniques, yielding new information on their prey species and feeding behaviors. It has been determined that these wolves are morphologically distinct from modern North American wolves and genetically basal to most modern and extinct wolves. The Beringian wolf has not been assigned a subspecies classification and its relationship with the extinct European cave wolf (Canis lupus spelaeus) is not clear.
The Beringian wolf was similar in size to the modern Alaskan Interior wolf (Canis lupus pambasileus) and other Late Pleistocene gray wolves but more robust and with stronger jaws and teeth, a broader palate, and larger carnassial teeth relative to its skull size. In comparison with the Beringian wolf, the more southerly occurring dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus) was the same size but heavier and with a more robust skull and dentition. The unique adaptation of the skull and dentition of the Beringian wolf allowed it to produce relatively large bite forces, grapple with large struggling prey, and therefore made predation and scavenging on Pleistocene megafauna possible. The Beringian wolf preyed most often on horse and steppe bison, and also on caribou, mammoth, and woodland muskox.
At the close of the Ice Age, with the loss of cold and dry conditions and the extinction of much of its prey, the Beringian wolf became extinct. The extinction of its prey has been attributed to the impact of climate change, competition with other species, including humans, or a combination of both factors. Local genetic populations were replaced by others from within the same species or of the same genus. Of the North American wolves, only the ancestor of the modern North American gray wolf survived. The remains of ancient wolves with similar skulls and dentition have been found in western Beringia (northeastern Siberia). In 2016, a study showed that some of the wolves now living in remote corners of China and Mongolia share a common maternal ancestor with one 28,000-year-old eastern Beringian wolf specimen.
Starting in the 1930s, representatives of the American Museum of Natural History worked with the Alaska College and the Fairbanks Exploration Company to collect specimens uncovered by hydraulic gold dredging near Fairbanks, Alaska. Childs Frick was a research associate in paleontology with the American Museum who had been working in the Fairbanks region. In 1930, he published an article which contained a list of "extinct Pleistocene mammals of Alaska-Yukon". This list included one specimen of what he believed to be a new subspecies which he named Aenocyon dirus alaskensis – the Alaskan dire wolf. The American museum referred to these as a typical Pleistocene species in Fairbanks. However, no type specimen, description nor exact location was provided, and because dire wolves had not been found this far north this name was later proposed as nomen nudum (invalid) by the paleontologist Ronald M. Nowak. Between 1932 and 1953 twenty-eight wolf skulls were recovered from the Ester, Cripple, Engineer, and Little Eldorado creeks located north and west of Fairbanks. The skulls were thought to be 10,000 years old. The geologist and paleontologist Theodore Galusha, who helped amass the Frick collections of fossil mammals at the American Museum of Natural History, worked on the wolf skulls over a number of years and noted that, compared with modern wolves, they were "short-faced". The paleontologist Stanley John Olsen continued Galusha's work with the short-faced wolf skulls, and in 1985, based on their morphology, he classified them as Canis lupus (gray wolf).
Gray wolves were widely distributed across North America during both the Pleistocene and historic period. In 2007 Jennifer Leonard undertook a study based on the genetic, morphology, and stable isotope analyses of seventy-four Beringian wolf specimens from Alaska and the Yukon that revealed the genetic relationships, prey species, and feeding behavior of prehistoric wolves, and supported the classification of this wolf as C. lupus. The specimens were not assigned a subspecies classification by Leonard, who referred to these as "eastern Beringian wolves". A subspecies was possibly not assigned because the relationship between the Beringian wolf and the extinct European cave wolf (C. l. spelaeus) is not clear. Beringia was once an area of land that spanned the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Sea, joining Eurasia to North America. Eastern Beringia included what is today Alaska and the Yukon.
DNA sequences can be mapped to reveal a phylogenetic tree that represents evolutionary relationships, with each branch point representing the divergence of two lineages from a common ancestor. On this tree the term basal is used to describe a lineage that forms a branch diverging nearest to the common ancestor. Wolf genetic sequencing has found the Beringian wolf to be basal to all other gray wolves except for the modern Indian gray wolf and Himalayan wolf.
As of 2020, the oldest known intact wolf remains belongs to a mummified pup dated 56,000 YBP that was recovered from the permafrost along a small tributary of Last Chance Creek near Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. A DNA analysis showed that it belonged to the Beringian wolf clade, that the most recent common ancestor of this clade dates to 86,700–67,500 YBP, and that this clade was basal to all other wolves except for the Himalayan wolf.
A haplotype is a group of genes found in an organism that are inherited together from one of their parents. A haplogroup is a group of similar haplotypes that share a single mutation inherited from their common ancestor. Mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) passes along the maternal line and can date back thousands of years. A 2005 study compared the mitochondrial DNA sequences of modern wolves with those from thirty-four specimens dated between 1856 and 1915. The historic population was found to possess twice the genetic diversity of modern wolves, which suggests that the mDNA diversity of the wolves eradicated from the western US was more than twice that of the modern population. A 2007 study compared mDNA sequences of modern wolves with those from Beringian wolves. The twenty Beringian wolves yielded sixteen haplotypes that could not be found in modern wolves, compared with seven haplotypes that were found in thirty-two modern Alaskan and Yukon wolves. This finding indicates that Beringian wolves were genetically distinct from modern wolves and possessed greater genetic diversity, and that there once existed in North America a larger wolf population than today. Modern Alaskan wolves have not descended from the Beringian wolves but from Eurasian wolves which migrated into North America during the Holocene.
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