8/15/2023 0 Comments Prehistoric wolf![]() ![]() The team ultimately recovered around a quarter of the nuclear genome and a full complement of mitochondrial DNA from the samples, writes David Grimm for Science. To reveal the dire wolf’s true evolutionary identity, researchers extracted DNA from five fossils between 13,000 and 50,000 years old and sequenced their genomes. (More than 4,000 of the creatures have been pulled from the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles alone, reports Angela Watercutter for Wired.) The startling result upends the notion that the dire wolf was a sister species to the gray wolf and adds precious evolutionary detail to a species that was once a common sight in North America. ![]() When researchers sequenced the extinct predator’s genome, they found it wasn’t a wolf at all but instead a distinct lineage that split off from the rest of the canines some 5.7 million years ago, reports James Gorman for the New York Times. Though the show exaggerates their size-they were only about 20 percent larger than today’s gray wolves-these prehistoric canines were very real and very deadly hunters that roamed North America until roughly 13,000 years ago.īut now, new research published this week in the journal Nature reveals that the real animal diverges from what you may have seen on TV in a more fundamental way. Try to convince us otherwise, we dare you.Dire wolves have lunged into the public imagination through their enormous and fearsome fictional representation in Game of Thrones. dirus supports it as the northernmost occurrence of this species in North America.”įor more information and to see the study in its entirety, you can visit the website here – otherwise, sleep well knowing that Canada is absolutely the Earth’s Winterfell. Identification of the Medicine Hat specimen as C. “A landmark-based principal component analysis and a canonical variates analysis suggests that the specimen more strongly resembles dire wolf specimens than grey wolf. “Geometric morphometrics were used to test the previous identification of the Medicine Hat dentary,” they wrote. In addition to South America, the dire wolf also once thrived in Canada! While this was known to scientists, Canada had yet to find a real-life fossil in Great North – until now.ĭiscovered in Medicine Hat, Alberta – a jagged and broken jaw bone with several intact teeth was found a while ago – but it wasn’t until this week that it was confirmed to have come from the XL pup.Ī specimen that dates back between 25,000 and 50,000 years ago, scientists at the Royal Ontario Museum were able to use new technology to lock their suspicion in. ![]() This may come as a surprise to many, but the dire wolf ( Canis dirus) is actually a very real animal that lived thousands of years ago during the ice age. You can order a magical Harry Potter ‘holiday trunk’ in Canada this month & here’s howĪ boozy wizard-themed mini-golf experience just opened in Calgary Photo via Ashley Reynolds/Royal Ontario Museum/ Loyal, fearless and cute as heck, the giant dog-like creatures were introduced in season 1 and fought alongside protagonists throughout the show – but now, we can officially say that actually called (the land now known as) Canada their home. Game of Thrones is, and will always be, one of the greatest shows of all time and while all characters are memorable for one reason or another – few were more beloved than the dire wolves. ![]()
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