Talk:Pleistocene wolf

Megafaunal vs Beringian wolves

Do we need separate articles for megafaunal and Beringian wolves? Lavateraguy (talk) 08:52, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Hello Lavateraguy. We do at this point in time. We are certain that the Beringians were Canis lupus based on morphology and mDNA. We are unsure if the megafaunal wolves across the Mammoth steppe were Canis lupus, a patch of lupus here and some other species of wolves similarly adapted elsewhere (phenotypic plasticity), or whether they were all Canis lupus spelaeus (i.e. what we refer to as the European cave wolf). Genetically there appears to be some relationship between at least some of the widely distributed specimens, and a more distant relationship between many of the others. Some specimens are not clear (and I have deliberately avoided including Canis dirus, the similarly adapted Dire wolf). It would be very neat if at some time in the future it were found that they were all related and formed one subspecies of lupus, then, as you recommend, we could do some consolidation. Until that time, we only have indicators but nothing certain. You can rest assured that "they" are working on it. For your info:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/science/the-big-search-to-find-out-where-dogs-come-from.html?_r=1 Regards, William Harris • talk • 09:16, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

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Move

Hello All. I am proposing an uncontroversial WP:MOVE of this article to the new name of Pleistocene wolf, with "Megafaunal wolf" being another one of its names. This is because since this article was created, there are now a number of research papers that use this name and from which this article could be further developed. The new article would become sister to the Pleistocene coyote. I shall wait one week for replies. William Harris (talk) 21:15, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Now moved. William Harris (talk) 01:35, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

I find the last section quite awkward. Any ideas for how to improve it? I think one could safely (without losing anything of value) replace the whole section with something to the effect of "Robert Wayne notes that 'the dog may have been derived from a wolf similar to [the Pleistocene wolf].' [55]" Or one could obliterate the section and put a sentence like the one I gave in the introduction, unless it's not that important. —GreenWeasel11 (talk) 21:42, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Feel free to implement the first option. The entire article is due for an overhaul; I am just waiting for a couple of more studies now in the pipeline to be published before I commence. William Harris (talk) 07:01, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

New genomic evidence questions whether a distinct "Pleistocene wolf" existed

A research article from 2022 brings the notion of an extinct "Pleistocene wolf" into serious question: Bergström et al. 2022, Nature (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04824-9). It uses whole genome sequences rather than just mitochondrial DNA, and finds that wolves in the Pleistocene were highly genetically interconnected, and not particularly diverged from todays wolves - instead, wolves that lived during the Pleistocene were very likely simply the ancestors of todays grey wolves. The taxonomic label "Pleistocene wolf" thus does not seem very meaningful - to the contrary, it is arguably actively misleading, by suggesting the existence of a fundamentally different type of wolf that was distinct from todays wolves, and by suggesting an extinction process that likely never took place.

In the light of this new evidence, I don't see a reason why this page should exist. Any relevant material on grey wolf evolutionary history and diversity (including past morphological diversity) could be moved to pages relating to the grey wolf and its evolution. 139.222.20.98 (talk) 12:57, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

My issue with Bergström 2022 is that these researchers are all geneticists, so they have been chasing phylogenetic ghosts through mathematical models based on probabilities. It is a powerful tool of research, but only one tool. Their work has not commented on the palaeontological data, which shows distinct physical differences between those cold-adapted wolves that lived across the northern holarctic mammoth steppe in contrast with those that existed elsewhere. That these "Pleistocene wolves" were physically different and existed is beyond doubt, and the article has many references supporting this that meets WP:NOTABILITY and a separate article. As for the Bergström 2022 concluding statement "the reason Pleistocene wolves appear basal to present-day diversity is not that they went extinct, but that continued gene flow homogenized later ancestry." That is basically saying that they once existed but were bred out of existence by better adapted and more numerous wolves; that sounds like they became extinct to me. Therefore I see no reason for their existence to be "bred out" on Wikipedia as well. Regards, 14.2.205.177 (talk) 00:08, 25 January 2024 (UTC)