Big Game Hunting > Wolves
Black wolves are not pure wolf!
Special T:
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/biologists-solve-mystery-about-80301?fbclid=IwAR1NrCGw4lEF51bDruSOq0pP00YIVfKjRxBqdmDWHM-xcmYouHh0dCz3r-w
Why do nearly half of North American wolves have black coats while European wolves are overwhelmingly gray or white? The surprising answer, according to teams of biologists and molecular geneticists from Stanford University, UCLA, Sweden, Canada and Italy, is that the black coats are the result of historical matings between black dogs and wild gray wolves.
The research, federally funded by the National Science Foundation, appears Feb. 5 in the online edition of the journal Science and will be published later in the journal's print edition.
The scientists used molecular genetic techniques to analyze DNA sequences from 150 wolves, about half of them black, in Yellowstone National Park, which covers parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. They found that a novel mutated variant of a gene in dogs, known as the K locus, is responsible for black coat color and was transferred to wolves through mating.
The biologists are unsure of when the black coat color was transferred from dogs to wolves, but they believe it was not a recent occurrence; the black coat could not have spread as widely as it has throughout North America in just a few hundred years, they say. They suspect the transfer took place sometime before the arrival of Europeans to North America and involved dogs that were here with Native Americans.
nwwanderer:
Genetics of color in most critters is very fickle, identical twin calves will not be the same. The DNA folks should be able to give us a reliable date as more data accumulates. Following along
Special T:
This is an older article, that more than likely was posted on here years ago. Enough time has passed that i wonder what other relatable issues can be tied to this study. Perhaps with different leadership from the Feds Scientific studies like this one may Spur some management
jackelope:
Like lots of wolf topics, there always seems to be mixed information.
Another article on the same topic says this happened 10's of thousands of years ago.
https://www.thoughtco.com/mystery-of-north-americas-black-wolves-129716
--- Quote ---To better understand the genetic underpinnings of black wolves, a team of scientists from Stanford University, UCLA, Sweden, Canada and Italy recently assembled under the leadership of Stanford's Dr. Gregory Barsh; this group analyzed the DNA sequences of 150 wolves (about half of which were black) from Yellowstone National Park. They wound up piecing together a surprising genetic story, stretching back tens of thousands of years to a time when early humans were breeding domestic canines in favor of darker varieties.
It turns out that the presence of black individuals in Yellowstone's wolf packs is the result of deep historical mating between black domestic dogs and gray wolves. In the distant past, humans bred dogs in favor of darker, melanistic individuals, thus increasing the abundance of melanism in domestic dog populations. When domestic dogs interbred with wild wolves, they helped to bolster melanism in wolf populations as well.
--- End quote ---
greenhead_killer:
So, does that mean we can shoot on sight since they are not 100% wolf?!? It’s scientifically proven they’ve been mating with domestic dogs, the fng doesn’t want interbreeding
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