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Facts About the Dire Wolf
The largest ancestral canine that ever lived, the dire wolf (Canis dirus) terrorized the plains of North America until the end of the last Ice Age, ten thousand years ago. It lives on in both popular lore and pop culture (as evidenced by its cameo role on the HBO series "Game of Thrones").
01 The Dire Wolf Was Remotely Ancestral to Modern Dogs
Despite a common misconception, the dire wolf occupies a side branch of the canine evolutionary tree. It isn't directly ancestral to modern Dalmatians, Pomeranians, and Labradoodles, but is more of a great uncle a few times removed. Specifically, the dire wolf was a close relative of the gray wolf (Canis lupus), the species from which all modern dogs descend. The gray wolf crossed the Siberian land bridge from Asia about 250,000 years ago, by which time the dire wolf was already well entrenched in North America.
02 The Dire Wolf Competed for Prey With the Saber-Tooth Tiger
The La Brea Tar Pits, in downtown Los Angeles, have yielded the skeletons of thousands of dire wolves—intermingled with the fossils of thousands of saber-tooth tigers (genus Smilodon). Clearly, these two predators shared the same habitat, and hunted the same assortment of prey animals. They may even have stalked each other when extreme conditions left them no choice.
03 The Big Dogs on "Game of Thrones" Are Dire Wolves
Fans of the HBO series "Game of Thrones," are familiar with the orphaned wolf cubs adopted by the ill-fated Stark children. They're dire wolves, which most inhabitants of the fictional continent of Westeros believe are mythical, but have been rarely sighted (and even domesticated) in the North. Sadly, in terms of their survival, the Starks' dire wolves haven't fared much better than the Starks themselves as the series has progressed.
04 The Dire Wolf Was a "Hypercarnivore"
Technically speaking, the dire wolf was "hypercarnivorous," which sounds a lot more frightening than it actually is. What this means is that the dire wolf's diet consisted of at least 70 percent meat. By this standard, most mammalian predators of the Cenozoic Era (including the saber-tooth tiger) were hypercarnivores and so are domestic modern-day dogs and cats. Secondarily, hypercarnivores are distinguished by their large, slicing canine teeth, which evolved to cut easily through the flesh of prey.
05 The Dire Wolf Was 25 Percent Bigger Than the Biggest Modern Dogs
The dire wolf was a formidable predator, measuring almost five feet from head to tail and weighing in the vicinity of 150 to 200 pounds—about 25 percent bigger than the biggest dog alive today (the American mastiff), and 25 percent heavier than the largest gray wolves. Male dire wolves were about the same size as females, but some of them were equipped with larger and more menacing fangs. This presumably increased their attractiveness during mating season and improved their ability to kill their prey.
And as always have a chilled day from the Viking
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