Listen to the whole interview.
I regularly comment on the CFZ’s blog. I’m most often a skeptic. In fact, it’s hard to get me entirely sold on a theory in cryptozoology.
And I’m more than a little bit skeptical about some of this.
Some points:
1. The only dogs that climb trees are gray foxes (which live in North, Central, and South America. They are found in Texas) and raccoon dogs, which are entirely out of the picture.
2. Mexican wolves are not the most primitive subspecies of wolf. We actually don’t know which one it is, but it is usually suggested that the red wolf or the Indian wolf is. (I’m reviewing something that talks about this issue, but I’m not at liberty to discuss it right now.) Those two animals are sometimes called a separate species, but if one considers them to be the same species as the rest, then they become the most primitive. They look very similar to each other for a reason!
3. It is very possible that a coyote might have Mexican wolf DNA. This doesn not surprise me at all. In West Virginia, coyotes have been found with domestic dog mtDNA. The red wolf commonly has something like coyote mtDNA, although at least one specimen had wolf mtDNA. These critters exchange genes. It’s only now that we’re starting to look at it. For example, black wolves got their coloration from crossbreeding with black domestic dogs. Maybe those hairless dogs from Mexico have exchanged genes with the coyotes in Texas. Or maybe the coyotes are developing a hairless adaptation to live at high densities in Texas. This one reason why Latin American dogs developed the hairless trait. It was a defense against ectoparasites.
4. I don’t think some sort of skin disease can be ruled out. I’m not sure of which one.
5. It sounds like several species are involved. Gray foxes in subtropical and tropical populations often shed out and look like this or like this. Gray foxes could also explain the tree climbing behavior.
I’ve always found this stuff interesting, and I’ve always found the people who do this professionally even more so.
But I’m skeptical.
Again, alas, no dice on hearing the interview. But a subject I am most interested in–the whole how do wolves-coyotes-Red Wolves, etc. fit together?(Not to mention the origins of dogs, which we have discussed a lot elsewhere on this blog lately). Of course many believe(and there is some evidence of this), that all Red Wolves are is a naturally occurring cross between Gray(Timber, etc) wolves and coyotes. Other DNA research indicates(?) Red Wolves were the progenators of BOTH, that coyotes and “regular” wolves are just offshoots of the Reds–both intriguing and possible theories. Either way, they all can(and do, under the right circumstances) crossbreed and produce fertile offspring. Known Coyote X Wolf crosses look amazingly like Red Wolves. I luckily have had the privelege of getting to work with Red Wolves some at the N. C. Zoo, that breeds and supplies some wolves for the release program on our coast, where the only surviving(?) population of “pure” Red Wolves(or as close to “pure” as the remainder of these guys get)–I love them and think they are worthy of preserving regardless of their heritage. I see both very wolflike and very coyote-like characteristics in them, and some individuals are more coyote-like, others more wolf-like(one 90 lb. bruiser we have I’d have a real hard time distinguishing from a Gray Wolf!), which such diversity is something you likely get with hybrids. Where did you read/hear BLACK wolves came from DOG genes?????? I have never encountered this in all my many fanatical years of research/experience!!?? Black, like white and everything inbetween, is quite naturally possible in so-called “gray” wolves, and many so-called Red Wolves used to be black as well–in fact their first European scientific name was “Canis Niger”, but was changed later to “Canis Rufus”–and coyotes, too, occaisionally(but more rarely) have a melanistic phase. Black wolves are SO COMMON in North America, if what you say is true, it would infer that MOST wolves had dog genes–look at the wolves in Yellowstone for example–almost as many black as gray! And as I know YOU know, most black wolves do lighten up and get much lighter in color as they grow older, unlike most black dogs–so I kinda am doubting this supposition myself…. One thing I’ve always wondered, and which rarely comes up in all this suppositioning, is where did the giant DIRE WOLVES of the Pleistocene fit in all this? Were they pack animals too, or more solitary? Could they also crossbreed with Gray Wolves and Coyotes under the right circumstances, and were just yet another variation on this Canid wolf theme? Could there be Dire Wolf DNA in our modern wolves, too? I GOTTA get that time machine I’ve been workin’ on finished!!!!!
Actually, it’s now been determined that all wolves, including the red, are derived from a Eurasian ancestor. This has yet to hit the popular press. The reason why they look like Indian wolves is they are both the two most oldest extant forms of wolf. I count them as a subspecies, although this isn’t popular. If you want to see a bigger fight than the one over Cesar, just mention red wolf to a bunch of wolf biologists.
Here are the North American canine cladisticis as of 2009:
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1206/574.1
I also don’t count the Indian wolf as a separate species.
Black coloration in wolves comes from dogs: http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/evidence-now-suggests-that-black-wolves-in-italy-and-north-america-got-that-coloration-from-interbreeding-with-dogs/
Black coyotes also get this color from dogs, though probably from wolves that interbred with them.
Yeah, the Wolf people do really bicker about Red Wolves! And I doubt the “new” evidence for designation will definitively settle things! I am reluctant to automatically accept anything new, because it realistically needs to percolate a bit and be debated some, as scientists, like dog trainers, always want to be THE ONES to follow, and sometimes there is as much politics in new theories as science! So I’ll wait a bit before I automatically accept such studies…… The black-comes-from-dogs-ONLY in wolves I don’t buy for a second, and the fact that black wolves are more common in North America than Europe(except that one area in Italy you mentioned) indicating this for crossbreeding being more common in the New world vs. the old, would not make sense, as Old World wolves had as much opportunity to breed with dogs in Eurasia as in North America(at least in some areas). Black color phase Red Foxes are more common in North America, too, and of course this has nothing to do with crossbreeding with dogs! Of course that’s possibly irrelavent to this debate, but one point it makes is that melanistic phases occur in many animals, and it would not be unusual for wolves to have had this color phase long before any dogs were invented! The wolf releases in Yellowstone were incredibly scrutinized–I HIGHLY doubt they would have released any wolves if they had the slightest real DNA evidence of domestic dog in their genetics! And many of these wolves are black. This is ONE study, and it doesn’t sound like it is absolutely proven from reading it(thanks for the interesting link), and I personally don’t buy it–just a bit too far fetched. That’s like saying all WHITE wolves have doggy DNA!(maybe that’s the next theory!)
Apparently the crossbreeding occurred 10,000 years ago, and the gene is older in dogs than it is in wolves. So I buy it. We don’t have a genetic test to determine whether an animal is a wolf or a dog. We have some (interesting) ones that think they can predict breeds in a cross.
Italian wolves have started to come in black for exactly the same reason. Dogs are around.
The last wolf in Scotland was black, and it is now widely believed to have been a hybrid.
Welllll, all I can say is ONE genetic study does not a wolf(or dog) make; these studies are not infallible.Oh crap, did I just use a semi-colon? Sorry about that…..:) However, IF it IS true, it is just MORE evidence that Coppinger’s dogs-domesticated-themselves-around-permanent-village-dumps(NOT!)is somewhat off on the dates! And perhaps we’ll just have to accept wolves more as a feral(as opposed to truly wild) variety/breed of dog! In the end, NATURE decides what a wolf is, and MAN decides what a dog is!
where would the black coloring in dogs have come from (if not from wolves?)
Same place that flat-faces on pugs and floppy ears on goldens come from. It’s just a mutation. The mutation for this black coloration exists in both dogs and wolves, but it is older in dogs than it is in wolves. So wolves got it from dogs.
There’s another Vulpes who can climb in trees, says the link above.
It is the korsak, a common, pretty fox from Russia and Mid-Asia:
http://www.tunturisusi.com/arokettu.html.
Okay, that’s three. Three wild dogs can climb trees. Corsacs aren’t found in the US, although two close relatives can be found: the swift and kit foxes.
NOW the link is above.