How Did This Wolf Get To An Isolated Chain Of Islands?

Wednesday, March 6, 2013 - 09:00 in Paleontology & Archaeology

Falkland Islands Wolf Michael Rothman, Ace Coinage IncDNA testing and marine geology shows how the now-extinct Falkland Islands wolf crossed almost 300 miles of sea. In 1690, British explorers at the Falkland Islands questioned how a wolf made its way almost 300 miles from the Argentinian shore to the isolated islands. In 1834, on his famous Beagle voyage, Charles Darwin asked the same question. Now a team of researchers say they've figured out how the now-extinct species managed the trip: it skated over. To figure it out, a University of Adelaide team did some DNA digging. First they tested tissue samples from the skull of a wolf Darwin himself (!) collected and samples from a recently uncovered wolf specimen in New Zealand. They also looked at six specimens from a related species--the almost-wolf Dusicyon avus--to determine when, exactly, the Falkland wolf diverged genetically. DNA testing seemed to show the two...

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