Genetic and morphometric analysis of sixteenth century Canis skull fragments: implications for historic eastern and gray wolf distribution in North America

Authors: Linda Y. Rutledge, Kirsten I. Bos, Robert J. Pearce, Bradley N. White

From the Conservation Genetics

“In eastern North America, planning for wolf population restoration is complicated by the disputed historic distributions of two wolf species: the Old World-evolved gray wolf (Canis lupus) and the New World-evolved eastern wolf (C. lycaon). [...] Furthermore, our data support the idea of a shared common ancestry between eastern wolves and western coyotes, and that the distribution of gray wolves at this time probably did not include the eastern temperate forests of North America.”

Click here to find out more in the abstract and to read the article.