If you were to travel from Arctic Canada and head south down the Rocky Mountains into the US towards Mexico, the further south you go, the more black wolves there are.
If you were to travel from Arctic Canada and head south down the Rocky Mountains into the US towards Mexico, the further south you go, the more black wolves there are. Up to now, it has been a mystery for scientists why this is so.
Professor Tim Coulson from the Department of Biology, University of Oxford who led the work explained, ‘In most parts of the world black wolves are absent or very rare, yet in North America they are common in some areas and absent in others. Scientists have long wondered why. We now have an explanation based on wolf surveys across North America, and modelling motivated by extraordinary data collected by co-authors who work in Yellowstone.’
Coat colour in wolves (Canis lupus) is determined by a gene called CPD103. The ancestral version of CPD103 codes for a grey coat but a genetic mutation that arose in domestic dogs and then crossed into wolves codes for a black coat colour. Wolves inherit two copies of CPD103 - one from each parent - but only need to inherit one copy of the black variant to have a black coat.
Read more at: University of Oxford
Members of the Druid Peak Pack in Yellowstone National Park engage in a game of chase. (Photo credit: Daniel Stahler/NPS)
