Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 5, 2026

Optimized Bone Sampling Protocols for the Retrieval of Ancient DNA from Archaeological Remains
Published on: November 30, 2021
On the ancestry and evolution of the extinct dire wolf
Gregory L Gedman1, Kathleen Morrill Pirovich2, Jonas Oppenheimer3
1Colossal Biosciences, Dallas, TX, USA; Form Bio, Dallas, TX, USA.
None:
Dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus) are extinct predators of Pleistocene North America. Although phenotypically similar to living wolves (Canis lupus), dire wolves have yet to be placed confidently in the canid family tree. We generated 3.4× and 12.8× paleogenomes from two well-preserved dire wolves dating to >13,000 and >72,000 years ago and estimated consensus species trees for these and 10 canid species. Our results revealed that ∼2/3 of dire wolf ancestry is most likely derived from a lineage sister to the clade comprising the gray wolf, coyote, and dhole and the remaining ∼1/3 from a lineage near the base of Canini diversity. Our results underscore the power of paleogenomes to resolve long-standing taxonomic questions and contribute to growing evidence of the role of post-speciation gene flow as an evolutionary force.
Related Concept Videos
Conservation of Small Populations
The Fossil Record
What is Evolutionary History?
The Evidence for Evolution
Threats to Biodiversity
Synteny and Evolution
Around 80 million years ago, the human and mice lineages diverged from the common ancestor. During the course of evolution, the ancestral chromosome underwent...
