New genetic evidence suggests dire wolves weren't actually wolves!
I couldn't access the link. If they weren't actually wolves, what were they? A previously unknown family of carnivores?
Just dogs + convergent evolution.
Finally accessed the article after waiting a bit. So they WERE canids, but turn out to have been a separate genus. It's pretty amazing how they can now recover DNA from such ancient remains. That DNA evidence has upended all kinds of taxonomic theories.
This reminds me of the dire wolf skull exhibit at the La Brea Tar Pits. There were probably around 500 or so dire wolves excavated from one spot where they had presumably become trapped when they went after prey that were also trapped in the tar. It's a fantastic museum, inside and out. Until my visit, decades ago, I had assumed that dire wolves were the stuff of legend and fairy tales.
