SCOTTIE WESTFALL: North American Canid stuff

Just thought I'd send this along-- and send a theory along.

I think some of the animals that are being identified as coyotes in Texas are actually a derivative of the same line as the Mexican wolf. The part of Texas where that specimen was collected is not within historical Mexican wolf range.



(C.l. baileyi historically was found to the west of most of Texas.)

However, I think that it might be possible that the Mexican wolf and a coyote-like animal might share the same lineage. One line evolved into the Mexican wolf, and the other evolved into an undocumented coyote-type wolf. This "coyote" regularly interbreeds with C. latrans, but it shares a heritage with the Mexican wolf. I don't know if you've explored this possibility or not.

That may be why this particular specimen looks very coyote-like and not in the least bit wolfish.

Mexican wolves were found to have a unique mtDNA haplotype. It has sometimes been suggested that they are actually a unique species or the oldest form of C. lupus in North America.

Coyotes and wolves have been exchanging genes for a very long time. The coyotes of the Great Lakes. Eastern Canada, and the Northeastern US are heavily interbred with wolves and have evolved into deer predators that hunt in large packs.

We don't have a firm grasp on the wolf subspecies yet, and no one has performed an extensive analysis of coyote molecular evolution. Coyotes range from Alaska to Panama and can interbreed with wolves and dogs.

Determining what is a wolf and what is a coyote can lead to big fights among canid experts. Some experts believe in a single wolf species that has evolved in much the same way as the multiregional theory for human evolution suggests for our species. Of course, the multiregional theory has been discredited in humans. I have yet to see it discredited in wolves.