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Wolf ancestors began to develop in the Paleocene, about sixty million years ago. By the Miocene, about twenty million years ago, canines and felines had branched into two separate families. In one ancestor of the wolf,Tomarctus, the fifth toe on the hind leg became vestigal and is evidenced today by the dew claw on both wolves and dogs. Research of wolf history by Robert Wayne at the University of California suggests that a number of wolflike canids diverged from a common ancestor about two to three million years ago. The first gray wolf,(Canis Lupis), probably appeared in Eurasia sometime in the early Pleistocene period about a million years ago. Around 750,000 years ago, it is though to have migrated to North America.

The Dire Wolf,(Canis Dirus), larger and heavier than the gray wolf, evolved earlier and the two co existed in North America for about 400,000 years. As prey became extinct around 16,000 years ago due to climatic change, the dire wolf gradually became extinct itself. Around 7,000 years ago the gray wolf became the prime canine predator in North America.

The Dire Wolf

The dire wolf was a large canine that exhibited hyena like characteristics. Like thehyena, the dire wolf hunted and scavenged for food. Researchers suspect that dire wolves, due to their scavenging nature, scattered the bones of animals they killed or that were killed by other prey. The dire wolf was not quite like any animal we have today. It was similar in overall size and mass to a large modern gray wolf. (A popular misconception is that dire wolf dwarfed the modern day grey wolf)

It was about 1.5 meters (5 feet) long and weighed about 50 kilograms (110 pounds) on average. The dire wolf looked fairly similar to the modern gray wolf; however, there were several important differences. The dire wolf had a larger, broader head and shorter, more sturdy legs than its modern relative. The teeth of dire wolf much larger and more massive than those of the gray wolf. The braincase of the dire wolf is also smaller than that of a similarly-sized gray wolf. The fact that the lower part of the legs of the dire wolf are proportionally shorter than those of the gray wolf, indicates that the dire wolf was probably not a good a runner as the gray wolf.

The Evolution of the Genus Canis

The genus Canis underwent a mixed fate at the end of the Pleistocene. The gray wolf and coyote survived the extinction that occurred approximately 10,000 years ago. The dire wolf, however, was one of the animals that did not survive. Perhaps the dire wolf depended on scavenging the remains of the large herbivores of the last Ice Age. The extinction of these herbivores may have then led to the extinction of the dire wolf. Scientists do not know if this is the case; however, they continue to search for the reason that many kinds of mammals went extinct about 10,000 years ago.

The grey wolf was well was established in North America by the time the first Native American and Inuit Peoples came across the Beringia, about eighteen thousand years ago. The Evolution of the domestic dog is still a matter of much debate. Some Believe that the dog is descended from the wolf, while others think they are evolved separately from a common ancestor. Recently the American Society of Mammologist recommended that the domestic dog be reclassified as a new subspecies of wolf, Canis lupus familiaris. There is some genetic evidence that the dog is descendent from the wolf and that the domestication of the dog took place several times over the course of history.