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Painting of a Falkland Islands wolf by Michael Rothman, Ace Coinage Inc. Credit: Michael Rothman, Ace Coinage Inc

University of Adelaide researchers have found the answer to one of natural history’s most intriguing puzzles – the origins of the now extinct Falkland Islands wolf and how it came to be the only land-based mammal on the isolated islands – 460km from the nearest land, Argentina.

Previous theories have suggested the wolf somehow rafted on ice or vegetation, crossed via a now-submerged land bridge or was even semi-domesticated and transported by early South American humans.

The 320-year-old mystery was first recorded by early British explorers in 1690 and raised again by Charles Darwin following his encounter with the famously tame species on his Beagle voyage in 1834.

Researchers from the University’s Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) extracted tiny pieces of tissue from the skull of a specimen collected personally by Darwin. They also used samples from a previously unknown specimen, which was recently re-discovered as a stuffed exhibit in the attic of Otago Museum in New Zealand.

The findings were published in Nature Communications today and concluded that, unlike earlier theories, the Falkland Islands wolf (Dusicyon australis) only became isolated about 16,000 years ago around the peak of the last glacial period.

Read the rest of the article here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 14th, 2013 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Bigfoot Report, Cryptid Canids, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Extinct, Forensic Science, Museums. You can follow responses via our RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.