ew genetic evidence reveals a new species of living Nin Africa. Formerly confused with golden jackals, and thought to be an Egyptian subspecies of jackal, the African wolf shows members of the Thomas Krumenacker aureus lupaster. wolf lineage reached Africa about three million years ago, before they spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere. We tend to think of as a Northern Hemisphere species. The only other wolf on the African conti- nent is the Arabian wolf, Canis lupus arabs, in the , where a scatter of sightings has been recorded throughout the years. Having worked for many years on Ethiopian wolves (Canis simensis), a close relative of gray wolves, I have always been intrigued by CLAUDIO SILLERO-ZUBIRI by their evolutionary links. I have often pondered what might have been the routes and associated land bridges that “The cryptic African wolf: Canis aureus enabled ancestors to reach the highlands of Ethiopia in the lupaster is not a heartlands of the Horn of Africa. Scientists have consistently placed and is not endemic to .” Ethiopian wolves close to gray wolves and coyotes, with a common ancestor that might have lived a mere 100,000 years ago. Huddling by the fireplace under African skies, my associates and I have often had long conversations trying to undo that long winding road and wished-for fossil finds that might proffer the missing link we longed for. Sadly, such fossils are not abundant

R ebecca Jakeral in North Africa, and at any rate, genetics

4 Winter 2011 www.wolf.org might arguably be a better approach to answer this kind of question today. Having read the few accounts ugal Tiwari of large canids in North Africa Y that I could find in Oxford’s African wolf, Canis aureus lupaster, stands alert. libraries, I targeted a population of golden jackals in southern Egypt described as Canis aureus lupaster Fast forward a few years to a collab- cally very close relatives and in many as a potential candidate to resolve the orative effort among biologists from cases cannot be easily distinguished by puzzle. As long ago as 1880, the great the universities of Addis Ababa and genetic studies. evolutionary biologist Thomas Huxley Oslo to study the relationship between Further analysis at Rueness’ lab commented that golden jackals in isolated Ethiopian wolf populations linked our cryptic “wolf” specimens in Ethiopia looked suspiciously like gray in the Highlands of Ethiopia, using the highlands of Ethiopia to the se- wolves. The same observation was DNA extracted from scat specimens. quencing of lupaster, 2,500 km (1,553 made by several 20th century biolo- The specimens, including some from miles) to the north in Egypt. This gists studying skulls. Nonetheless, the sympatric golden jackals, were shipped finding unambiguously placed the ill- conventional scientific classification to a lab in Oslo for analysis. A while fitting Egyptian jackal and its close has not been changed, and lupaster— later, Eli Rueness, the scientist respon- relatives from Ethiopia within the wolf the golden jackal of southern Egypt— sible for the analyses, contacted me species complex. It transpires that continued to be regarded as a subspecies with breathless excitement, saying that lupaster and its Ethiopian Highlands’ of the golden jackal, albeit with a some of the samples looked like wolf relatives are not jackals but wolves in hovering question mark. DNA, but did not match anything in jackal clothing. Taxonomically these A few years ago, Yugal Tiwari, a GenBank, the world’s largest repository African canids are grouped with the young Indian biologist who was of genetic sequences. Northern Hemisphere’s gray wolf, working in Eritrea, sent me a grainy Unwittingly, we had uncovered and Himalayan wolf. picture, captured from a video he had genetic evidence of a cryptic canid Recent genetic evidence suggests filmed from the road while travelling species that looked like a golden jackal that the Indian and Himalayan wolves in Eritrea’s Danakil (see photo above). but whose genetic code expressed evolved separately within the modern My interest was piqued, since it showed something else. A cryptic species wolf cluster, even before the gray wolf a young, lanky canid with large paws complex is a group of species that radiated throughout the Northern that could easily be a desert-dwelling satisfies the biological definition of Hemisphere. Furthermore, not only wolf. The evidence was modest, but species—that is, they are reproduc- did these two types of wolves originate we published a short note in the hope tively isolated from each other—but before gray wolves radiated in northern that we could attract similar reports. whose physical traits are very similar latitudes, but the wolf’s colonization of Unfortunately, no additional informa- (in some cases virtually identical). The Africa also took place before the gray tion has turned up. species in a cryptic complex are typi- wolf radiation.

International Wolf Winter 2011 5 L ajos N emeth- B oka Arabian wolf, Canis lupus arabs.

The colonization of Africa by the not threatened—but the newly discov- ancestral wolf stock took place about ered African wolf may be much rarer. three million years ago and is today Certainly, it has become a priority for embodied by the that has both canid conservation and science to hitherto been called the Egyptian discover its whereabouts and numbers.

L ajos N emeth- B oka jackal. It was not the missing link for It seems that the Egyptian jackal is Ethiopian wolves that I had hoped for, urgently set for a name change, and its but something just as intriguing. For unique status as the only member of The colonization me personally, this study showed the wolf complex in Africa destines it of Africa by the the strengths of modern genetic tech- to be renamed the African wolf. n niques, demonstrating that old puzzles ancestral wolf stock may be solved, and hidden biodiver- Acknowledgements sity may be exposed in relatively unex- took place about plored regions. * Rueness E.K., Asmyhr M.G., Sillero- three million years ago The news of a wolf in Africa, which Zubiri C., Macdonald D.W., Bekele A., went viral once our paper in PLoS ONE Atickem A. Stenseth N. (2011) and is today embodied was published, raised fascinating “The Cryptic African Wolf: Canis biological questions about how the aureus lupaster is Not a Golden by the animal that has new African wolf evolved and lived Jackal and Is Not Endemic to Egypt.” hitherto been called alongside not only the real golden PLoS ONE 6(1): e16385. jackals but also the vanishingly rare http://www.plosone.org/article/ the Egyptian jackal. Ethiopian wolf. The latter is a very info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal. different species, of more recent origin, pone.0016385 with which the new discovery should not be confused. But the African Professor Claudio Sillero-Zubiri is the wolf discovery contributes to our chair of the IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist understanding of the biogeography Group. Sillero-Zubiri is the deputy of Afroalpine fauna, an assemblage of director of the Wildlife Conservation species with African and Eurasian Research Unit (WildCRU) (www.wildcru. ancestry that evolved in the relative org) of the University of Oxford and isolation of the highlands of the works on conservation of threatened Horn of Africa. species, protected areas management and the mitigation of human-wildlife The news of this new African wolf conflict. He has studied Ethiopian also raised issues of conservation wolves since 1987 and founded the importance. Golden jackals are Ethiopian Wolf Conservation regarded by the International Union Programme (www.ethiopianwolf.org). for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) R ebecca Jakeral as a species of “least concern”—i.e.,

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