The Beringian wolf is an extinct population of wolf that lived during the Ice Age. It inhabited what is now modern-day Alaska, Yukon, and northern British Columbia. Some of these wolves survived well into the Holocene. The Beringian wolf is an ecomorph of the gray wolf and has been comprehensively studied using a range of scientific techniques, yielding new information on their prey species and feeding behaviors. It has been determined that these wolves are morphologically distinct from modern North American wolves and genetically basal to most modern and extinct wolves. The Beringian wolf has not been assigned a subspecies classification and its relationship with the extinct European cave wolf is not clear.
Beringian wolf
Artist's impression of the Beringian wolf
Bison surrounded by a gray wolf pack. Beringian wolves preyed most often on steppe bison and horse.
Diagram of a wolf skull with key features labelled
The dire wolf is an extinct canine. The dire wolf lived in the Americas during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene epochs. The species was named in 1858, four years after the first specimen had been found. Two subspecies are recognized: Aenocyon dirus guildayi and Aenocyon dirus dirus. The largest collection of its fossils has been obtained from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.
Dire wolf
Display at the Page Museum of 404 dire wolf skulls found in the La Brea Tar Pits
Gray wolf skeleton (left) compared with a dire wolf skeleton
Restoration of a pack in Rancho La Brea by Charles R. Knight, 1922