During a field expedition to Ethiopia, a team of scientists noticed something odd: The golden jackals there looked more slender with a whiter coat than they do elsewhere. Now, genetic analyses suggest these oddities are not jackals at all but instead more closely related to gray wolves.
In fact, until now these "highland jackals" were referred to as Egyptian jackals (Canis aureus lupaster), and had long been considered a rare subspecies to the golden jackal (C. aureus).
With new genetic evidence in hand, the team suggested the animal be called the African wolf to reflect its true identity.
"It seems as if the Egyptian jackal is urgently set for a name change," said study researcher Claudio Sillero of Oxford University's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU). "And its unique status as the only member of the gray wolf complex in Africa suggests that it should be re-named 'the African wolf,'" said Sillero, who has worked in Ethiopia for more than two decades.
(The gray wolf population extends to the Sinai Peninsula but doesn't exist on mainland Africa.)
Look-alikes
"We originally set out to study the jackals in Northern Ethiopia, and discovered this new species by chance through the genetic analyses," said study team member Nils Christian Stenseth, a research professor and chairman of the Center for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis at the University of Oslo in Norway.
Stenseth, Sillero and their colleagues, including scientists from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, analyzed the DNA from the feces of five individuals of the mysterious animal, one of which they had filmed defecating so they could link for certain this creature with its DNA sample. They got another tissue sample, for DNA analysis, from a road kill in Arsi in southeast Ethiopia. And DNA samples were also obtained from golden jackals in Serbia.
The DNA comparisons showed C. a. lupaster is more similar to the gray wolves than to golden jackals.
The work also suggested gray wolves reached Africa around 3 million years ago before spreading throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
"Our findings suggest that the colonization of Africa by the ancestral stock of gray wolves took place about 3 million years ago and is today embodied in the animal that has hitherto been called the Egyptian jackal," Stenseth told LiveScience.
The new wolf is a relative of the Holarctic gray wolf, which lives in northern Europe and northern Asia, the Indian wolf and the Himalayan wolf.
African fauna
The findings add to our knowledge about the so-called Afroalpine fauna, an assemblage of species with African and Eurasian ancestry that evolved in the relative isolation of the highlands of the Horn of Africa.
"A wolf in Africa is not only important conservation news, but raises fascinating biological questions about how the new African wolf evolved and lived alongside not only the real golden jackals but also the vanishingly rare Ethiopian wolf, which is a very different species with which the new discovery should not be confused," said study team member David Macdonald, director of Oxford University's WildCRU.
Rare Ethiopian wolves split off from the gray wolves even earlier than the newly discovered African wolf.
Wolf conservation
Currently, the golden jackal is listed as a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which means the animal doesn't fit into any of the "endangered" or "threatened" categories.
"In Ethiopia, the golden jackals, which presently includes the cryptic African wolves, are systematically persecuted because of their threat to livestock," the researchers write. Even so and even though the Egyptian jackal is supposedly extremely rare, it is not protected, they add.
To get an idea of the true population numbers and distribution, the team said a thorough survey is needed in both Ethiopia and adjacent countries. Stenseth and his colleagues hope to continue their research with a study of the animal's ecology - how it interacts with other animals and its environment.
Study shows canid is 'wolf in jackal's clothing'
Mark Kinver BBC News 28 Jan 11;
DNA analysis has shown that the Egyptian jackal, previously believed to be a subspecies of the golden jackal, is a relative of the grey wolf.
Genetic information shows that the species, Canis aureus lupaster, is more closely related to Indian and Himalayan wolves than golden jackals.
Writing in Plos One, researchers said the renamed "African wolf" was the only grey wolf species found in Africa.
They also called for an urgent assessment of its conservation status.
There has been a long-running debate over whether the animal was a jackal or wolf.
In the late 19th Century, the renowned evolutionary biologist Thomas Huxley said that it looked suspiciously like grey wolves (Canis lupus).
In the 20th Century, other biologists made similar comments after examining skulls from specimens of the species. However, the taxonomical classification remained unchanged.
The team of researchers from Norway, Ethiopia and the UK explained why they decided to focus their attention on the species.
"During a field study of the Ethiopian wolf in central Ethiopia, we noticed that some golden jackals differed slightly in their appearance from golden jackals elsewhere," they wrote.
They added that the canids were "larger, more slender and sometimes with a more whitish colouration".
This, combined with a photograph taken in 2004 in Eritrea that showed a "wolf-like animal" which was suggested to be an Egyptian jackal, prompted the team to investigate the area's highland golden jackals and sequence their DNA.
Exciting find
Co-author Claudio Sillero, from the University of Oxford's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), said it was "really exciting" to find that what they thought was a member of a relatively common species, only to find out that the animal could belong to a much more unique grouping.
He added: "What I understand from the genetic work carried out by our Norwegian colleagues is that the consistency of the results returned very strong [similarities to other subspecies of the grey wolf].
"This is why we are very confident that we are looking at a different taxon."
Professor Sillero explained what the next step would be in order to get the species formally reclassified.
"Traditionally, you would do a formal morphological description of the specimen. However, there is a possibility that we could describe the species on genetic material alone," he told BBC News.
"We stopped short of doing that on this paper because we wanted to get the feedback, and the response has been phenomenal among colleagues.
"Somewhere along the line, I think we will push for it to be recognised as a separate species."
Until now, the range of the grey wolf was known to extend to the Sinai Peninsula but not into mainland Africa. It was presumed that the closest living relative in the continent was the endangered Ethiopia wolf (Canis simensis), found only in the Ethiopian highlands.
Professor Sillero, who is also chairman of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's canid specialist group, explained that researchers found examples of the species at two highland locations, which extended the known range of Canis aureus lupaster by at least 2,500km south-east.
"This brings more questions than answers, such as how far into the heartland of Africa do they go?"
He added that he had recently received an "intriguing photograph" taken in northern Senegal.
"It was a picture of a wolf, there is no question about that, but we have never talked about wolves being present in Senegal before," he told BBC News.
"This wolf is hanging out with a family group of side-striped jackals. So this shows that there is complexity, not just in distribution but in sociality."