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The Taxonomic Status of Wild Canis (Canidae) in the South Central United States Author(S): Howard Mccarley Source: the Southwestern Naturalist, Vol

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The Taxonomic Status of Wild Canis (Canidae) in the South Central United States Author(S): Howard Mccarley Source: the Southwestern Naturalist, Vol Southwestern Association of Naturalists The Taxonomic Status of Wild Canis (Canidae) in the South Central United States Author(s): Howard McCarley Source: The Southwestern Naturalist, Vol. 7, No. 3/4 (Dec. 15, 1962), pp. 227-235 Published by: Southwestern Association of Naturalists Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3668845 . Accessed: 24/05/2013 18:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Southwestern Association of Naturalists is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Southwestern Naturalist. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.192.114.19 on Fri, 24 May 2013 18:39:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE SOUTHWESTERN NATURALIST 7 (3-4): 227-235 DEC. 10, 1962 THE TAXONOMICSTATUS OF WILD CANIS (CANIDAE) IN THE SOUTH CENTRAL UNITED STATES HOWARD MCCARLEY Departmentof Biology, Austin College, Sherman, Texas ABSTRACT. The relationshipbased on skullmorphology of populationsknown as Canis latransand C. nigerin Arkansas,Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas is con- sidered.Available evidenceindicates that C. niger has becomeextinct except in isolatedareas of Louisiana.Elsewhere, C. latranshas replacedC. nigeras a primary predator.Probable previous hybridization between C. latransand C. nigeris dis- cussed. INTRODUCTION Two species of wild canines, red wolves, (Canis niger) and coyotes (C. latrans) have been reportedin recentyears fromArkansas (Sea- lander, 1956), Louisiana (Lowery, 1943), eastern Oklahoma (Blair, 1939; McCarley, 1952) and eastern Texas (McCarley, 1959). Both species, as presently defined, show a considerable amount of geo- graphic variation and morphological overlap of both skeletal and pelage characteristics.Considerable confusion exists in speciesidentifi- cation in areas where bothmay occur. This paper is an analysis of the relationshipthat currentlyexists between coyotesand red wolves in the south central United States (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas) based largelyon skull morphology. The study of variation in red wolves by Young and Goldman (1944), resulted in the naming of three subspecies of red wolves, largely on the basis of size. The largest of the subspecies,Canis n. niger (Bartram) has a geographicrange in the southeasternUnited States east of the Mississippi River. This formis now presumedto be extinct and, because its range is beyond the confinesof the present study, will not be consideredfurther. The smallest of the red wolf populations was assigned to the subspecies C. n. rufus Audubon and Bachman with a geographicrange in centralTexas, centralOklahoma and northwesternArkansas. A formdescribed as C. n. gregoryiGold- man has been characterizedas intermediatein size betweenniger and rufusand has a geographicrange betweenthat of nigerand rufus,i.e., the area eastwardfrom eastern Oklahoma and Texas to,the Mississippi River and thence northwardinto Illinois and Indiana. Thus a west to east cline ofincrease in size is apparent. 227 This content downloaded from 128.192.114.19 on Fri, 24 May 2013 18:39:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Only one recognizedform of coyote (Canis latrans frustrorWood house) has been recordedfrom the geographicarea under considera- tion (Young and Jackson, 1951; Hall and Kelson, 1959). This, the largestof the coyoteforms, has a range generallysympatric with C. n. rufusand overlaps the range of C. n. gregoryinear the easternborders of Oklahoma and Texas. The two species under consideration are morphologicallyquite similar and have been distinguishedlargely on the basis of size. This similarityof size is particularlytrue of Canis n. rufusand C. 1. frus- tror. Young and Goldman (1944) stated the problem well: "There appear to be no . dependable charactersdistinguishing in all cases small specimens of rufus fromlarge ones of the coyote." At various times workersin canid taxonomyhave proposedcharacters or combi- nations of charactersof reputed value in separatingthe two forms, e.g., skull size (Young and Goldman, 1944), size of canines and spac- ing of premolars (Young and Jackson,1951), index of ratio of palatal width and upper molar tooth row (Howard, 1949), and hind foot length (Hall and Kelson, 1959). All of these criteriawere testedusing skullsand/or specimens of animals previouslyidentified as one species or the other.With the exceptionof overall skull size, all these criteria produced results so inconsistentthat they had little value in distin- guishingC. n. rufusand C. latransfrustror. The problemof separatingC. 1. frustrorfrom C. n. rufusis further complicated by the situation regardingthe holotypes.The holotype of frustroris a young male (about fourmonths old) and includes the skin only. No type specimen has been designatedfor rufusalthough Goldman (1937) restrictedthe name to canid populationsoccurring 15 miles westof Austin, Texas. METHODS One hundred and seventeenadult skulls of recentorigin (since ap- proximately 1948) were examined and measured. The following measurementswere made of each skull: (1) greatestlength of skull, (2) condylobasal length, (3) zygomaticbreadth, (4) squamosal con- striction,(5) width of rostrum,(6) interorbitalbreadth, (7) length of maxillary toothrow, (8) upper carnassial length, (9) lower car- nassial length,(10) space between2nd and 3rd upper premolars,and (11) space between2nd and 3rd lowerpremolars. In addition to the skulls mentionedabove, 17 skulls of C. n. rufus and 8 skulls of C. n. gregoryithat were used by Goldman (Young and Goldmnan,1944) forhis monographof the species were examined,re- 228 This content downloaded from 128.192.114.19 on Fri, 24 May 2013 18:39:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions measured, and used for subjective comparisons. Two hundred and twenty-oneadditional skulls and/or carcasses of coyotes were ex- amined, but not measured. Examination of the latter specimenswas possible because of the practiceof trappersand otherpredator control workersof hanging the carcasses of killed animals on fence posts by the sides of highwaysthroughout eastern Oklahoma and Texas. When these carcasses were noted they were usually examined on the spot, and unless there was some individual, or some skull, of which the species identitywas in doubt, the carcasses were left as found. This selectivitybiased the data derived fromthe 117 measured skulls in favorof the largerskulls. DATA Analysis of all measurementsshowed thatthere was a gradationin size fromthe smallest to the largest skulls of presumed specimensof niger and latrans. On the basis of size, the largestskulls were assign- able to C. n. gregoryi.The smallest skulls were obviously assignable to C. latransfrustror. A considerablenumber of skulls,however, were intermediatein size and not easily assignable to eitherspecies. Identi- ficationof these intermediatesized skulls constitutedthe main prob- lem of this study. The majority of the skulls examined were of un- known sex. Consequently,it was necessaryto treatboth sexes together with full recognitionthat males generallyexceeded femalesin size in both species. For convenience,and to have an adequate series in each case to analyze statistically,skulls from several differentlocalities were groupedtogether. Due considerationin thosegroupings was given not only to geographic distribution,but also to ecologic distribution mainly on the basis ofbiotic districts. Figures 1 and 2 representan approach (Hubbs and Hubbs, 1953) to the problem of distinguishingred wolves and coyotes using skull lengthand zygomaticbreadth as indicatorsof size. The measurements used forCanis n. gregoryiand C. n. rufuswere taken fromthe meas- urementsof Young and Goldman (1944) unless otherwisenoted. It can be seen thatthere was a markedsimilarity in relationshipfor both characters for each of the populations from differentareas. (The majority of the skulls from Atoka County, Oklahoma, had broken zygomata and were not included in Figure 2.) The patternexhibited in Figures 1 and 2 was also true of all othercranial featuresstudied. Because skull length and zygomaticbreadth were the best indicators of size, comparisonof these two characterswas deemed the most sig- nificantfor distinguishing coyotes and wolves. 229 This content downloaded from 128.192.114.19 on Fri, 24 May 2013 18:39:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Length of Sku IllI(mm.) 18 200 220 240 C. n. gregoryl(50) Okla.,McCurtain Co. (2) Louisiana (4) C. n. rufus (33) Arkansas(2) Okla., eastern coun les (10) Texas, eastern counties (19) Okla., Bryan Co. (I4) -777 Okla., Jefferson C . (38) Okla., Okfuskee Co. 1I0) Ark.,western counties (7) Okla, Atoka Co. (11) I I I_ _ Fig. 1. Variation of total length of skull of populations of wild Canis fromthe southeastern United States. For each locality the range of variation is shown by a heavy horizontal line: the mean by a small narrow vertical line. The blackened part of each bar comprises two standard errors of the mean on either side of the mean and indicate reliability. One-half of each black bar plus the white bar at either end outline one standard deviation on either side of mean
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