Coy Wolves or Coywolves?
The judge fulminated: wolves are endangered because they lack genetic exchange capacity. But the judge was very wrong. Wolves are canines, and canines are famously adept at gene exchange. To put it mildly and modestly.
Last December we reported [here]:
by George Dovel, From The Outdoorsman, No. 35, July-Nov 2009
In November 2007 when Evolutionary Biologists Jennifer Leonard and Robert Wayne announced that most of the several thousand “wolves” being protected in the Great Lakes region were actually wolf-coyote crosses, Utah Wildlife Ecologist Dr. Charles Kay commented, “What a mess!” During their two-year study of the genetic make-up of Great Lakes wolves that were delisted, the study did not find any purebred Eastern Timber Wolves, and only 31% of the wolves tested had any Eastern timber wolf “genes” in their genetic make-up.
When confronted with this information by the news media in November 2007, Eastern Gray Wolf Recovery Team Leader Rolph Peterson admitted they had known all along that the wolves were crossbreeding with coyotes. …
Now the little known but truly excellent Yellow Pine Times has done the research. Kudos to YP Sue, editor, publisher, and friend to all creatures.
Coywolves
by YP Sue
Halfthings
“Gray wolves and coyotes don’t usually play well together in the wild, but sometimes the mood is right and baby coywolves are born. Coywolves aren’t considered a separate species, but genetic research suggests that red wolves (extinct in the wild by 1980, now being reintroduced) originally descended from gray wolf/coyote hybrids. If coywolves persist, they may someday develop distinct enough taxonomy and behavior to require a unique Latin name.”
Quote lifted from [here]
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R. K. Wayne and S. M. Jenks. 1991. Mitochondrial DNA analysis implying extensive hybridization of the endangered red wolf Canis rufus. Nature 351, 565 - 568 [here]
Abstract:
THE red wolf, previously endemic to the southeastern United States, declined precipitously in numbers after 1900 because of habitat destruction, predator control programmes, and hybridization with coyotes. Hybridization with coyotes probably occurred as these animals, which adjust well to agriculture, became numerous and moved eastwards. By 1970, red wolves existed only in extreme southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana. In 1967, red wolves were classified as endangered and a captive breeding programme was begun in 1974 after passage of the Endangered Species Act, about a year before they became extinct in the wild. Protein electrophoresis and morphometrics have been used to try to discriminate red wolves from hybrids and coyotes. But because the average substitution rate of mitochondrial DNA in mammals is much greater than that of nuclear genes, mtDNA analysis is a more useful way of distinguishing closely related species. We have now analysed mtDNA restriction-enzyme sites and cytochrome b gene sequence variation in captive red wolves and in 77 canids sampled during the capture period. We also used the polymerase chain reaction to amplify and then sequenced mtDNA from red wolf skins collected before substantial hybridization of red wolves with coyotes is thought to have occurred. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that red wolves have either a grey wolf or coyote mtDNA genotype, demonstrating hybridization among these species. Thus, the red wolf is entirely a hybrid form or a distinct taxon that hybridized with coyotes and grey wolves over much of its previous geographical range. Our findings, however, do not argue against the continued protection of the red wolf.
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Red Wolf (from Wikipedia [here])
The Red Wolf (Canis lupus rufus) is a North American canid subspecies which once roamed throughout the Southeastern United States and is a glacial period survivor of the Late Pleistocene epoch.[3] Its natural range extended from Texas to Florida northward to New York. Historical habitats included forests, swamps, and coastal prairies, where it was an apex predator. The Red Wolf became extinct in the wild by 1980.[4] A population of Red Wolf/Coyote hybrids [5]has been successfully reintroduced to eastern North Carolina.[6] Although this population has grown to over 100 animals, it is still highly endangered.
Description
The Red Wolf has a brownish or cinnamon pelt, with grey and black shading on the back and tail. Its muzzle is white furred around the lips. Black specimens have been recorded, but these are probably extinct. The Red Wolf is generally intermediate in size between the Coyote and the Gray Wolf. Males can reach up to five feet in length and 80 lbs. in weight. Like the Gray Wolf, it has almond-shaped eyes, a broad muzzle and a wide nosepad, though like the Coyote, its ears are proportionately larger. The Red Wolf has a deeper profile, longer and broader head than the coyote, and has a less prominent ruff than the Gray Wolf.[7] It moults once annually every winter.
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Coywolf: Are they a suburban legend, or a natural fact?
By Edie Johnson, The Chronicle, Feb 10, 2006 [here]
Goshen — Coyotes live in our neighborhood in Blooming Grove. They howled in groups at night through the spring and fall, and this year they sound like an inordinately large pack. I have seen three of them, two trotting right up my driveway. One of them, at the end of last summer, was pretty large.
If you have coyotes in your neighborhood, and if they look almost as much like a wolf as a coyote, there is a good reason. Researchers in the Northeast and Canada say the population of coywolf hybrids is growing in the region. Rumors of coydogs — a coyote/dog hybrid — have flourished for years, but now scientists are able to do DNA testing. Coydogs are rare, they have found, but coywolf hybrids are becoming more and more common as they adapt to life on small farms. The eastern coyote tends to be somewhat larger than those found in the Midwest.
“This is known as latitudinal cline - as you go north, animals get larger,” National Geographics expert Robert Winkler said.
A typical Midwest coyote would weigh 22 to 30 pounds, as opposed to a northeast coyote, which would weigh 32 to 38 pounds. This is a vast difference from the coywolf hybrids, which can range from 60 to 80 pounds for females, and 70 to 110 pounds for males. Of 100 coyotes studied in Maine, 22 were more than half wolf and one was 89 percent wolf.
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Coywolf (from Wikipedia [here])
The coywolf is a term used to refer to hybrids between a Coyote (Canis latrans) and the Gray wolf (Canis lupus) or the Red wolf (Canis lupus rufus). Wolves and coyotes can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, a fact which calls into question their status as two separate species.[1] However breeding experiments in Germany with poodles and coyotes, as well as with wolves, jackals and later on with the resulting dog-coyote hybrids showed a decrease in fertility and significant communication problems as well as an increase of genetic diseases after three generations of interbreeding between the hybrids, unlike with wolfdogs. Therefore it was concluded, that domestic dogs and Gray wolves are the same species and that the coyote is a separate species from both.[2]
The offspring is generally intermediate in size to both parents, being larger than a pure coyote, but smaller than a pure wolf. A study showed that of 100 coyotes collected in Maine, 22 had half or more wolf ancestry, and one was 89 percent wolf. A theory has been proposed that the large eastern coyotes in Canada are actually hybrids of the smaller western coyotes and wolves that met and mated decades ago as the coyotes moved toward New England from their earlier western ranges.[3] The Red Wolf is thought by certain scientists to be in fact a wolf/coyote hybrid rather than a unique species. Strong evidence for hybridization was found through genetic testing which showed that red wolves have only 5% of their alleles unique from either Gray wolves or coyotes. Genetic distance calculations have indicated that red wolves are intermediate between coyotes and grey wolves, and that they bear great similarity to wolf/coyote hybrids in southern Quebec and Minnesota. Analyses of mitochondrial DNA showed that existing Red Wolf populations are predominantly coyote in origin.[4] Researchers in the Northeast and Canada say the population of coywolf hybrids is growing in the Northeast region.[5]
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The red wolf (Canis rufus) – hybrid or not?
Montana EDU [here]
The red wolf originally ranged over much of the southeastern U.S. By 1970, it was extinct from its original range and propagated in captivity. The USFWS has spent a great deal of money and effort on captive rearing and reintroduction in the SE United States.
Hybridization with coyote (C. latrans) suspected as early as 1940’s. Hybridization was implicated in the decline of the red wolf.
Wayne & Jenks (1991) – analyzed mitochondrial DNA (maternal inheritance) and concluded that the red wolf ORIGINATED as a hybrid between coyote and grey wolf (C. lupus).
- also concluded that red wolf mitochondrial DNA is now predominantly coyote origin
- suggested that red wolf has never been a valid species or subspecies
- suggested that existing red wolf population is substantially coyote in origin (coyotes not protected)
Nowak (1992) – red wolf hybridized within last 100 years with coyote, but pre-dates European colonization of N. America as a distinct species in the fossil record
- morphological analysis supports interpretation that red wolf is an intermediate stage of canid evolution from a small, coyote-like form to the modern gray wolf – and distinct from both [the evidence he presents could also be interpreted as indicating hybridization if the skull traits he used are subject to blending inheritance]
