''Canis edwardii'', also known as Edward's wolf, is an extinct

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of wolf in the genus ''

Canis ''Canis'' is a genus of the Caninae which includes multiple extant taxon, extant species, such as Wolf, wolves, dogs, coyotes, and golden jackals. Species of this genus are distinguished by their moderate to large size, their massive, well-develo ...

'' which was endemic to

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

three million years ago from the Late

Blancan The Blancan North American Stage on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), typically set from 4,750,000 to 1,806,000 years BP, a period of .Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Irvingtonian The Irvingtonian North American Land Mammal Age on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), spanning from 1.8 million – 250,000 years Before Present, BP.

stage of the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

epoch.

Taxonomy

''Canis edwardii'' was named by Gazin in 1942. Xiaoming Wang and Richard H. Tedford proposed that the genus ''Canis'' was the descendant of the coyote-like '' Eucyon davisi'' and its remains first appeared in the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

(6 Mya) in the Southwestern USA and Mexico. By the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Canis lepophagus ''Canis lepophagus'' (Latin: : 'dog'; : 'hare' or 'rabbit'; suffix : '-eating'; hence hare-eating dog) is an extinct species of canid which was endemic to much of North America during the Early Pliocene. It is notable because its lineage is prop ...

'' appeared in the same region, and by the

Early Pleistocene The Early Pleistocene is an unofficial epoch (geology), sub-epoch in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, representing the earliest division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently esti ...

(1 Mya) ''Canis latrans'' (the

coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans''), also known as the American jackal, prairie wolf, or brush wolf, is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the Wolf, gray wolf, and slightly smaller than the c ...

) was in existence. They proposed that the progression from ''Eucyon davisi'' to ''C. lepophagus'' to the coyote was linear evolution. Additionally, ''C. edwardii'', ''C. latrans'', and ''C. aureus'' thought to have formed a small clade together and because ''C. edwardii'' appeared earliest, spanning the mid-Blancan (late Pliocene) to the close of the Irvingtonian (late Pleistocene) it is proposed as the ancestor.

''Canis priscolatrans''

''Canis priscolatrans'' lived in the Late Pliocene-Early Pleistocene in North America. The first definite wolf appeared in the Late

Blancan The Blancan North American Stage on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), typically set from 4,750,000 to 1,806,000 years BP, a period of .Irvingtonian The Irvingtonian North American Land Mammal Age on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), spanning from 1.8 million – 250,000 years Before Present, BP.

, and named ''C. priscolatrans'' that was either very close to or a synonym for ''Canis edwardii''. It resembled ''C. rufus'' in cranial size and proportions but to more complex dentition. However, there are no fossils of ''C. rufus'' until the Late Rancholabrean.

Björn Kurtén Björn Kurtén (19 November 1924 – 28 December 1988) was a Finnish vertebrate paleontologist and science fiction writer. Early life and education Kurtén was born in Vaasa in 1924. He was a member of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland ...

was uncertain if ''C. priscolatrans'' derived from ''C. lepophagus'' and ''C. arnensis'', but believed that ''C. priscolatrans'' was a population of large coyotes that were ancestral to

Rancholabrean The Rancholabrean North American Land Mammal Age on the geologic timescale is a North American faunal stage in the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA),Sanders, A.E., R.E. Weems, and L.B. Albright III (2009) Formalization of the mid- ...

and recent ''C. latrans''. He noted that ''C. arnensis'' of Europe showed striking similarities to ''C. priscolatrans'', and they could represent what once was a holarctic population of coyotes. Ronald Nowak disagreed, and believed that ''C. priscolatrans'' was a counterpart to the European ''C. etruscus''. Kurtén later proposed that both ''C. priscolatrans'' and ''C. etruscus'' were part of a group which led to ''C. lupus'', but was not sure if they evolved separately from ''C. lepophagus'' or a possible common ancestor that was derived from ''C. lepophagus''. The remains of the larger coyote-like ''C. edwardii'' have been found in the later

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58nomen dubium In binomial nomenclature, a ''nomen dubium'' (Latin for "doubtful name", plural ''nomina dubia'') is a scientific name that is of unknown or doubtful application. Zoology In case of a ''nomen dubium,'' it may be impossible to determine whether a ...

'').

Lineage

In 2021, researchers sequenced the nuclear DNA (from the cell nucleus) of the

dire wolf The dire wolf (''Aenocyon dirus'' ) is an Extinction, extinct species of Caninae, canine which was native to the Americas during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene epochs (125,000–10,000 years ago). The species was named in 1858, four y ...

. The sequences indicate the dire wolf to be a highly divergent lineage which last shared a most recent common ancestor with the wolf-like canines 5.7 million years ago, with morphological similarities with the grey wolf being convergent evolution. The study's findings are consistent with the previously proposed taxonomic classification of the dire wolf as genus ''Aenocyon''. The study proposes an early origin of the dire wolf lineage in the Americas, and that this geographic isolation allowed them to develop a degree of reproductive isolation since their divergence 5.7 million years ago. Coyotes, dholes, gray wolves, and the extinct ''

Xenocyon ''Xenocyon'' ("strange dog") is an extinct group of canids, either considered a distinct genus or a subgenus of ''Canis''. The group includes ''Canis'' (''Xenocyon'') ''africanus'', ''Canis'' (''Xenocyon'') ''antonii'' and ''Canis'' (''Xenocyon'') ...

'' evolved in Eurasia and expanded into North America relatively recently during the Late Pleistocene, therefore there was no admixture with the dire wolf. The long-term isolation of the dire wolf lineage implies that other American fossil taxa, including '' C. armbrusteri'' and ''C. edwardii'', may also belong to the dire wolf's lineage. In the 2024 study, Armbruster's wolf as a species of '' Aenocyon'' was considered plausible, while ''C. edwardii'' is considered more closely related to the modern

Description

''C. edwardii'' was larger than ''C. latrans'' and differs in skull and some tooth proportions, under this idea ''C. edwardii'' was a modest sized canid. A study of isotopes showed ''C. edwardii'' had a dietary overlap with the saber toothed cat ''Smilodon gracilis'', the large size of ''Smilodon gracilis'' and its similar sized prey implied ''C. edwardii'' might have hunted in packs due to the size of the prey included in the study.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3661310 Extinct wolves Prehistoric canines Pliocene mammals of North America Pleistocene carnivorans Pliocene first appearances Pleistocene species extinctions Pleistocene mammals of North America Fossil taxa described in 1942