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A study of Canis dentition concluded that the dire wolf was the most advanced, or evolutionary derived, Canis species in the Americas. The dire wolf could be identified separately from all other Canis species by its possession of: “P2 with a posterior cusplet; P3 with two posterior cusplets; M1 with a mestascylid, entocristed, entoconulid, and a transverse crest extending from the metaconid to the hyperconular shelf; M2 with entocristed and entoconulid.”:50
A study of the estimated bite force at the canine teeth of a large sample of living and fossil mammalian predators, when adjusted for the body mass, found that for placental mammals the bite force at the canines (in newtons/kilogram of body weight) was greatest in the dire wolf (163), followed among the modern canids by the four hypercarnivores that often prey on animals larger than themselves: the African hunting dog (142), the gray wolf (136), the dhole (112), and the dingo (108). The bite force at the carnassials showed a similar trend to the canines. A predator’s largest prey size is strongly influenced by its biomechanical limits. The morphology of the dire wolf was similar to that of its living relatives, and assuming that the dire wolf was a social hunter, then its high bite force relative to living canids suggests that it preyed on relatively large animals. The bite force rating of the bone-consuming spotted hyena (117) challenged the common assumption that high bite force in the canines and the carnassials was necessary to consume bone.
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Alexander Archipelago wolf
This wolf is recognized as a subspecies of Canis lupus in the taxonomic authority Mammal Species of the World (2005). Early taxonomists were able to determine that the Alexander Archipelago wolf was its own unique subspecies due to “common cranial characteristics”. Taxonomists have suggested more recently that the species may have originated from another subspecies known as C. l. nubilis.
Studies using mitochondrial DNA have indicated that the wolves of coastal southeast Alaska are genetically distinct from inland gray wolves, reflecting a pattern also observed in other taxa. They show a phylogenetic relationship with extirpated wolves from the south (Oklahoma), indicating that these wolves are the last remains of a once widespread group that has been largely extirpated during the last century, and that the wolves of northern North America had originally expanded from southern refuges below the Wisconsin glaciation after the ice had melted at the end of the last glacial maximum. These findings call into question the taxonomic classification of C.l. nulibus proposed by Nowak. Another study found that the wolves of coastal British Columbia were genetically and ecologically distinct from the inland wolves, including other wolves from inland British Columbia. A study of the three coastal wolves indicated a close phylogenetic relationship across regions that are geographically and ecologically contiguous, and the study proposed that C. l. ligoni (Alexander Archipelago wolf), C. l. columbianus (British Columbia wolf), and C. l. crassodon (Vancouver Island wolf) should be recognized as a single subspecies of C. lupus.
In 2016, two studies compared the DNA sequences of 42,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in North American gray wolves and found the coastal wolves to be genetically and phenotypically distinct from other wolves. They share the same habitat and prey species, and form one of the study’s six identified ecotypes – a genetically and ecologically distinct population separated from other populations by their different types of habitat. The local adaptation of a wolf ecotype most likely reflects the wolf’s preference to remain in the type of habitat that it was born into. Wolves that prey on fish and small deer in wet, coastal environments tend to be smaller than other wolves.
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