The Beringian Wolf Ecomorph and a Quick Look at its Paleoecology

Canidae

I bet a lot of you are familiar with the Dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus). The biggest canine (member of caninae) ever, that roamed North america and preyed on the large megafauna of the Pleistocene Americas. Althought it wasn’t really closely related to the typical wolf, and hence it wouldn’t even look like one. What can be overlooked however, is that, during these times, the modern wolves (Canis lupus) not only existed in large numbers, but also were much more diverse, with very large and robustly built morphs extending as far north as the Beringia.

Beringia is usually devided to western (Russian side) and eastern (Alaskan side) part. Sea levels were much lower then, which meant that the bridge between the continents was connected. This article mostly focuses on the eastern part (Fairbanks area) but not only. During the late Pleistocene, (here focusing on the last 100,000 years) Beringia was nothing like it’s today. At that time, a mosaic of high productive steppe-tundra existed, which supported numerous species of herbs, grasses, lichens and even shrubs and trees… It was in this environment where a handful of megafaunal species could be found, from herbivores: mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), bison (Bison priscus), caribou (Rangifer tarandus), woodland muskox (now considered Bootherium bombifrons), the wild yak (Bos mutus) and Yukon horse (Equus lambei) and on the western (siberian) side also the Lena horse (Equus lenensis) existed, among others. The guild of the largest carnivores was occupied by the now-extinct wolf ecomorph (Canis lupus), giant short-faced bear (Arctodus simus) Brown bear (Ursus arctos), cave and/or american lion (Panthera spelaea/atrox) and the scimitar cat (Homotherium serum).

Two beringian wolf individuals with different color variations (typical grey-toned and lighter arctic form) with one of their prey items, the Yukon horse. Human sillhouette is ~1.8 meters tall.

Althought this environment was always more or less very cold, several climatic changes are recorded, with the Last Glacial Maximum (roughly somewhere between 26,000 to 18,000 years before present) being very prominent one. This means that overtime a lot of smaller changes in the faunal communities existed. From stable carbon and nitrogen isotope and radiocarbon analysis, the diets of species can be inferred. The beringian wolf was both an active predator and a scavenger, which enabled it to survive even the harshest periods. These wolf are considered to be horse/bison generalists, and competed for the same resources with other predators such as the scimitar cat (Homotherium serum). From the eastern Beringia (Fairbanks area), interestingly, during the whole Late Pleistocene only the wolf seemed to persisted the whole time, while for example felids (scimitar cat and lion) were only scarcely present when short-faced bears occupied the land (40,000 to 20,500 years before present). For comparison the latter seems to have been a caribou specialist, althought it is reasonable to assume that the specializations of different carnivores cannot be so stricly defined (if a predator was starving it would eat anything it stumbled upon).

The mammoth steppe was a very vast habitat in both area and time, which stretched through whole Eurasia and Alaska, so surely there must had been a lot of different local interactions and dynamics both between the predators themselves and their prey.

This environment produced, compared to its modern counterparts, an extreme form of the wolf (Canis lupus), that was adapted to scavenging and hunting on the large herbivores present. It tended to posses short, broad palates and larger carnassials relative to the skull size, altogether indicating adaptations typical for bonecraking behaviour, that would require the ability to produce large bite forces. Perhaps one of its good modern analogues is the Spotted hyaena of the african savannahs.

The beringian wolf

According to the genetic evidence the beringian wolves (even those found on the American side) were not related to the modern North American and Eurasian wolves, and most likely represent a lineage, now extinct, that once stretched through the whole Eurasia. For instance, several pre-LGM (Last Glacial Maximum) wolf specimens from Ukraine, Chzechia and Altai (Altai dog) region show genetic (mitochondrial DNA haplotype) similarities to some beringian wolves, which is opposed to the modern populations which show no relatedness.

Despite before-mentioned differences, in nature, it would look like a normal wolf. Here, two possible color variations are shown based on the environment (the standard grey-toned and a lighter arctic form). As one of their potential prey items, I drew the Yukon horse, which (based on one partial carcass) would be in life a small (~1.2 meters tall) horse closely resembling the tarpan and przewalski’s horse, perhaps with a thicker fur adapted to colder climates.

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