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Related: About this forumA new species is evolving right before our eyes -- an ultra-successful mix of wolves, coyotes and dog
A new species is evolving right before our eyes an ultra-successful mix of wolves, coyotes and dogs
Travis Gettys TRAVIS GETTYS
30 OCT 2015 AT 11:35 ET
Eastern coyote (Wikipedia Commons)
A new species combining wolves, coyotes and dogs is evolving before scientists eyes in the eastern United States.
Wolves faced with a diminishing number of potential mates are lowering their standards and mating with other, similar species, reported The Economist.
The interbreeding began up to 200 years ago, as European settlers pushed into southern Ontario and cleared the animals habitat for farming and killed a large number of the wolves that lived there.
That also allowed coyotes to spread from the prairies, and the white farmers brought dogs into the region.
Over time, wolves began mating with their new, genetically similar neighbors.
The resulting offspring which has been called the eastern coyote or, to some, the coywolf now number in the millions, according to researchers at North Carolina State University.
More:
https://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/a-new-species-is-evolving-right-before-our-eyes-an-ultra-successful-mix-of-wolves-coyotes-and-dogs/?utm_source=push_notifications
Hooray for Wolcoyogs.
Cowolgs.
Nitram
(22,843 posts)a group that is sexually isolated from other species by the inability to produce viable offspring together, or a geographic or behavioral isolation that has the same effect. These creatures can and still do commonly mate with dogs, wolves and coyotes.
csziggy
(34,136 posts)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hybrid speciation is a form of speciation where hybridization between two different species leads to a new species, reproductively isolated from the parent species. From the 1940s, reproductive isolation between hybrids and their parents was thought to be particularly difficult to achieve and thus hybrid species were thought to be extremely rare. With DNA analysis becoming more accessible in the 1990s, hybrid speciation has been shown to be a fairly common phenomenon, particularly in plants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_speciation#Known_cases
The wolf-like canids are a group of large carnivores that are genetically closely related because their chromosomes number 78. The group includes genus Canis, Cuon and Lycaon. The members are the dog (C. lupus familiaris), gray wolf (C. lupus), coyote (C. latrans), golden jackal (C. aureus), Ethiopian wolf (C. simensis), black-backed jackal (C. mesomelas), side-striped jackal (C. adustus), dhole (Cuon alpinus), and African wild dog (Lycaon pictus).[2] Newly proposed members include the red wolf (Canis rufus), eastern wolf (Canis lycaon), and African golden wolf (C. anthus). As they possess 78 chromosomes, all members of the genus Canis (coyotes, wolves, jackals) are karyologically indistinguishable from each other, and from the dhole and the African hunting dog.[3][4]:p279 The members of Canis can potentially interbreed.[5]
When the differences in number and arrangement of chromosomes is too great, hybridization becomes less and less likely. The wolf, dingo, dog, coyote, and golden jackal all have 78 chromosomes arranged in 39 pairs.[6] This allows them to hybridize freely (barring size or behavioral constraints) and produce fertile offspring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canid_hybrid
I'm used to equine hybrids - mules, zedonks, etc. that are not fertile so the idea that canid hybrids are easily fertile is a little unsettling.
I suspect that the ecological disruption created by human development is isolating variable canid populations so the conditions for geographical and behavioral isolation are mat.
Nitram
(22,843 posts)evolutionary biologists in the case of dogs/coyotes/wolves. There would have to be evidence that they were no longer mating with dogs, coyotes, and wolves. Note that the requirement is "...the differences in number and arrangement of chromosomes is too great..." There is no evidence that threshold has been reached.