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Alaskan wolves became extinct 12,000 years ago
July 5 : Alaska’s ancient grey wolves became extinct some 12,000 years ago, and the wolves in Alaska today are not their descendents but a different subspecies, a team of international scientists has claimed.
Analysing DNA samples, conducting radio carbon dating and studying the chemical composition of these ancient wolves at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, the scientists compared the results with modern wolves and found that the two were genetically distinct.
“The ancient Alaskan gray wolves are all more similar to one another than any of them is to any modern North American or modern Eurasian wolf,” said study co-author Blaire Van Valkenburgh, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The ancient gray wolves lived in Alaska continuously from at least 45,000 years ago —probably earlier. The last recorded evidence of their existence dates back to 12,000 years ago, Van Valkenburgh claimed.
These wolves were not much different in size from modern Alaskan wolves, although their massive teeth and strong jaw muscles were larger. They were capable of killing large bison, Van Valkenburgh said.
The ancient wolves suffered many broken teeth and tooth fractures, she said.
According to Professor Van Valkenburgh, the ancient large mammals broke their teeth frequently when they ate, crunching the bones of their prey much more often than their modern counterparts because they were hungry and often found it difficult to catch and hold onto prey when there was much competition and theft among carnivores.
The ancient wolves’ competitors for food included lions, saber-toothed cats and enormous short-faced bears, she said.
The saber-toothed cat and other large mammals became extinct about 10,000 to 11,000 years ago when their prey disappeared due to factors that included human hunting and dramatic global warming at the end of the Pleistocene Age, Van Valkenburgh said.
Professor Van Valkenburgh believes that when environmental change happens very rapidly, animals often find it difficult to adapt, especially when the few places for them to move as habitats shrink. They are more likely to go extinct.
The National Science Foundation-funded research appears in the journal Current Biology. (ANI)
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