Journal
ZOOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Volume 27, Issue 4, Pages 320-324Publisher
ZOOLOGICAL SOC JAPAN
DOI: 10.2108/zsj.27.320
Keywords
Canis lupus hattai; genetic variation; mitochondrial DNA; phylogeography
Categories
Funding
- Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan [14405028, 18405034]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [14405028, 18405034] Funding Source: KAKEN
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The Ezo wolf (Canis lupus hattai Kishida, 1931) is an extinct subspecies that inhabited Hokkaido in Japan until the middle of the Meiji Period. Because there are very few preserved skeletons, no osteological and/or genetic analyses of the Ezo wolf have been conducted. In this study, 20 cranial and eight mandibular characters were measured on Ezo wolf skeletons, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was analyzed to assess genetic relationships between the Ezo wolf and other wolf lineages, including the Japanese wolf on Honshu. The morphological study showed that the Ezo wolf is larger than the Japanese wolf and similar in size to the grey wolf of the Asian and American Continents. MtDNA control sequences (751 bp) from two Ezo wolves were identical to those from the Canadian grey wolf. The morphological and genetic characters indicate that the ancestor of the Ezo wolf was genetically related to that of the grey wolf in Canada.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available