This image comes from an article in Scientific American in 1878 .
The description of the photo goes as follows:
The animal shown in our illustration has been sometimes called the “maned wolf,” but is more commonly known as the “red wolf,” from its predominant color. The zoological name is Canis jubatus. It was first described by D’Azara, a South American traveler, who gave its native name as aguara guazu, in the countries of the Rio de la Plata and Paraguay, where it is commonly found. It is, when full-grown, one of the larger beasts of the wolf kind, and its body is covered with long, stiff, shaggy hair, mostly of a reddish hue, but often with a white spot on the throat; the hair inside the ears and at the extremity of the tail is also whitish. The mane consists of stiff hairs, five or six inches long, which grow black at the tips; and this mane, which stands erect, extends from the occiput to behind the shoulder. The tail is rather bushy. The habits of this species of wolf are solitary; it frequents the low lying plains and marshes of the Paraguay, and the sand banks in the La Plata, feeding here on land crabs, there on rats, guinea pigs, and small birds, or some kinds of vegetables. The specimen from which our engraving is taken is now in the collection of the London Zoological Society, and is said by the Illustrated News to be the first yet carried alive to England (pg. 183).
In the nineteenth century, the term “red wolf” applied only to the animal we call the maned wolf, which is no longer called Canis jubatus but is now called Chrysocyon brachyurus. In the nineteenth century, most zoologists assumed that it was a close relative of the true wolves of Eurasia and North America.
It’s actually not.
It is the largest of all the South American wild dogs, which comprise monophyletic subtribe within the larger canid tribe called canini.
Its closest living relative is the bush dog, which is very much unlike a maned wolf. It’s short-legged and chocolate-colored, and it also possesses the unique trenchant heel dentition that African wild dogs and dhole– both closer relatives of the true wolf– also possess.
It is often claimed that Audubon was the first to call the reddish-colored wolves of Texas “red wolves.” But, as we have seen, any careful reading of Audubon’s text shows that Audubon didn’t regard it as a particularly distinct animal. It was nothing more than a color phase.
For most of modern history, the term “red wolf” has always referred to the maned wolf.
And no one argues that this animal is taxonomically distinct.
The animal upon which this image was based was the first of its kind in England. It could have been listed as some kind of giant South American fox, which is a closer approximation to its true taxonomy and phylogeny.
But the only way to describe it to North American and European audiences was to call it a “red wolf.”
There really was no other way to describe it.
Plus, its name in Spanish and Portuguese was very often some variant of the word lobo. which does mean wolf. In some Spanish-speaking regions, it is called “el lobo colorado,” the red wolf.
For whatever reason, the term “red wolf” began to refer to the color phase of wolf described by Audubon and Bachman.
But for most of the past three hundred years, the term “red wolf” referred to the animal we call a maned wolf.
The great irony is that although this animal isn’t actually a wolf, its closest relative was the warrah, which most of us know as the Falkland Islands wolf. It has the dubious distinction of being the only canid species to have gone extinct in historic times.
It wasn’t a wolf either, but it was first described as the “Antarctic wolf,” Canis antarcticus.
Because both of these animals were larger than the so-called South American foxes, they were called “wolves.”
But the foxes weren’t actually foxes, and the wolves weren’t wolves.
Indeed, it’s now been revealed that all the South American canids derive from a common ancestor, and they are all more closely related to each other than true wolves are to true foxes.
The maned wolf, of course, is nothing like a true wolf.
It has some physical similarities, but beyond that, it has very little similarities.
They don’t hunt in packs. They eat a lot of fruit.
They live in territories with just a mated pair that never forage together and are rarely seen in exactly the same place.
Every attempt to domesticate the maned wolf has been a failure.
And yes, people have tried.
Wouldn’t you want a pet that looks like that?
Unlike the so-called red wolf of North America, this South American canid is quite distinct.
It actually does have unambiguous conservation value, for there really isn’t anything else quite like it.
So maybe we should go back to calling this animal “the red wolf.”
It’s a far more fitting and accurate title for this animal than the coyote-derived wolf impostors that are currently being kept on national park and national forest land.
But its name is Guarani is perhaps a better fit:
Aguará guazú.
Now that name has a very exotic ring to it.
And this is a very exotic animal.
There’s nothing else like it anywhere else in the world.
And the Brazilian government has wisely decided to offer this animal legal protection. It’s not really an endangered species, but the IUCN lists it as “near threatened.”
It would be a shame if this animal’s status ever became worse.
We already lost one fake wolf from South America.
It would be a shame to lose the other one– the real red wolf.
Fascinating read. Is there any evidence for members of this group ever having lived in N. America?
What does Aguará guazú mean?
Large fox.
A bit odd that the description doesn’t mention the most obvious feature of the maned wolf — its extremely elongated legs. Perhaps this gave the animal height in order to see over the high grass of the pampas?
I have a weird feeling that you don’t like coyotes.
“It’s a far more fitting and accurate title for this animal than the coyote-derived wolf impostors that are currently being kept on national park and national forest land.”
How is that the coyotes are at fault here?
You’re reading too much into that statement.
I have no problem with coyotes, and I admire a lot of their behavior, as one could glean from my recent post on coyotes controlling predation by feral cats.
What I am saying is that these “red wolves” are actually coyotes with some wolf ancestry, and they are poor substitute for the wolves that once ranged in this area, which were large and almost always black, not coyotes at all.
Understood!
Perseverance Furthers!
Maybe if you say it in enough ways, people will start getting it. And stop contributing to the red wolf bureaucracy.
I can understand completely the argument that the red wolf project should be discontinued if indeed there is no such thing as a red wolf per se, but I have a feeling that Suhail may think that there could be a more sinister agenda behind the orchestration of anti red comments and that some people are just looking for another wild thing to target – to line up against the same wall as the coyotes so to speak and kill them with similar enthusisam.
I perceive a parallel between how some regard the coyote in your country and how the red fox is still regarded by a minority here.This minority inexplicably still sees all wild canines as something that potentially threatens and must be eliminated. The story of red riding hood and the big bad wolf is too hard wired into our western psyche I suspect. Anyway, as I keep saying, this is 2012 and we should all by now be seeing beyond that nonsense . We should learn to appreciate the dogs which don’t need a place by our firesides and see them as the wonderfully beautiful wild creatures they are, not merely as something to target, disrespect and hate. To want to kill such wonderful animals says more about us than it says about them I suggest.
Our current increasingly disliked prime minister promised to try to reverse the law banning fox hunting when putting up at the last election. However his diary has since been too full with weightier matters to fulfil that promise and as time passes brer fox becomes ever safer from the red coated mob.
People may use the red wolf study as a way to defend wolf persecution or oppose wolf recovery.
I am pro-wolf recovery.
As for coyotes, they don’t have any real legal protections because they aren’t endangered. They do cause problems with livestock and with pets, and they have attacked people without provocation, including several fatalities.
I don’t want coyotes to go extinct, but we have to manage coyotes and when wolves are restored, we’ll have to manage them, too.
This isn’t 1600. It’s no longer a vast wilderness that is filled with all sorts of wild animals. We have a lot more than most of Europe, but it’s still a mere of vestige of what was.
It’s a cheap shot I know, but pity we were not controlled a bit more, but I accept your remarks about the dangers you refer to, albeit I read somewhere that there have been surprisngly few verified historical reports of people being actually killed by wolves. Unless you know better of course. I’ll bet a lot more get injured and even killed in this country by the semi tame pheasants which get away and end up distracting drivers. I’ve even seen this happen in front of me and we have all heard the anecdotes. And as for the “highly managed” British deer population someone (not from here) referred to – well come and manage the deer all over the highway and amongst my vegetable patch if you know how. I don’t mean that of course I love our not so managed deer, warts and all..!
There has been only one confirmed, as in no arguments about it, fatality from a wolf in North America. It happened a few years ago.
In Russia, India, and Medieval Europe, there are plenty of accounts of wolves killing people.
This is the most famous account from Medieval Europe:
http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/the-wolves-of-paris/
Luckily the majority of us, in this more enlightend era, have the electronic means to challenge and by force of numbers control those human dinosaurs who wish to attack predators especiallyt the very vulnerable raptor species via the process of demonising them. We see during the last few days, in Britain, that it possible to stop even a prime minister and his rich shooting friends from having legal licence to destroy even the most protected of our wild species here.
I speak for the moment of the buzzard, only recently returned to eastern Britain after being destroyed here by gamekeepers. The government man with responsibility for protecting wildlife, a Mr Benyon, persuaded his friend the prime minister to stop buzzard protection and allow Beynon’s friends and their ilk to shoot up the nests, because having recovered, the buzzards now had the artifically reared pheasant on their menu,Yet It is the buzzards this man Beynon had been charged with protecting, not these semi tame lumbering pheasants reared to be shot.
Anyway the British public wouldf have none of this and so the plans to kill buzzards were promptly shelved a few days ago.
If they check online anyone who is interested can see that there has been a lot of poisoning of raptors in Scotland, particularly, but in England also. However these offendors are steadily being brought before the courts and so the killing of protected raptors is declining even if it may never cease entirely due to the illegal activities among the pheasant rearing and shooting fraternity in particular.
The point has been made that had this easement of buzzard protection gone ahead it is very likely, no certain, that the similar nests of all the other tree nesting raptors would be shot up as well. Where would that leave the recently reintroduced red kite, a bird so vulnerable over all of its range.
A lot of these weekend killers with shotguns are not exactly skillful. Grouse for example fly fast and low and thousands of them get just wounded but certain to die later.
It is estimated that 43 million pheasants are being artificially reared and released and many get injured by these fools with guns. These released slow brained pheasants crowd the roads around here and cause all sorts of problems. Does their roadkill artificially inflate the numbers of corvids, I don’t know.
“illegal activities” make that alleged illegal activities.