Although most people may know terrible wolves from their many appearances in theft Game of Thrones, did not spring directly from the mind of George RR Martin. In fact, scientists have known about the creature that has long since disappeared from the middle of the 19th century.
Until recently, it was widely believed that the terrible wolf (The dog is fading) was essentially a more muscular relative of the gray wolf (Canis lupus), partly because their skeletons look so similar. But a new study published in The nature suggests that the two species share much less than their predictions suggest.
It all started when archaeologist Angela Perri of Durham University in the UK embarked on an expedition to North America to locate the terrible wolf fossils in the museum’s collections and see if they could extract DNA from them. Her effort was successful: As National Geographic Reports, Perri and her collaborators were able to sequence genomes from five terrible wolf fossils in Idaho, Ohio, Tennessee and Wyoming. The remains date from 50,000 years ago to about 13,000 years ago (around time the terrible wolves have disappeared).
After comparing the terrible sequences of wolves with those of gray wolves and a few other canids, the researchers found that terrible wolves and gray wolves were genetically distant from their common ancestor about 5.7 million years ago. As Scientific American explains that their morphological similarity seems to be an example of convergent evolution; in other words, they developed similar traits because their lifestyle was similar, not because their DNA was similar.
Based on these discoveries, terrible wolves may have spent millions of years evolving in America – far from the gray wolves of Eurasia. In this case, it could have been the possible migration of other species – even humans – that led the terrible wolves to extinction.
“The question now is: Their extinction is related to climate and environmental change, or humans and potential other wolves and dogs, and [diseases] coming in to help push them out? “Perri said National Geographic.
The study could also have an impact on the scientific classification of the terrible wolf. With a weaker genetic connection to Canis gender, it may need to be moved to its own gender. But even if this happens, there is a good chance we will call them “terrible wolves” in ordinary conversation – just as we do with koala bears, electric eels, and other animals with misleading pseudonyms.
[h/t Scientific American]