Ghost DNA from hybrid coyotes could save endangered red wolves

A genetic reservoir of red wolf “ghost DNA” has been found hidden in coyote-wolf hybrids in southwestern Louisiana. The long-lost genes represent genetic diversity that experts thought disappeared when the last 14 wild red wolves were captured and bred in the 1970s.

are critically endangered. Just over 200 live in captivity, and only one population was reintroduced to the wild in North Carolina in 1987. By 2012, that population reached 120 individuals, but today only 20 remain. The rewilded wolves are genetically homogeneous and therefore more vulnerable to harmful genetic mutations, changing environments and extinction. The genetically diverse coyote-wolf hybrids may hold the keys to the species’ survival.She and her colleagues sequenced the genomes of more than 30 coyotes from southwestern Louisiana, where red wolves last lived in the wild and where they mingled and mated with coyotes. They found that up to 69 per cent of the genomes originated from red wolves.

The canine chimeras look like intermediates between the two species, but vonHoldt says they behave more like wolves. “I don’t think we should call it a coyote anymore,” she says. “If it looks like a wolf, and it acts like a wolf, maybe we should just call it a wolf.”The wolf-like coyotes could be the key to conservation. She says that when more red wolves are ready to be reintroduced to the wild, they should be placed close to hybrid carriers of this ghost DNA.

Additionally, the researchers are developing biobanks – what vonHoldt calls “frozen zoos” – of coyote cells that could be cloned to resurrect

Sweet. Science Research DNA Genetics Coyote Wolf Conservation Wolves WildLife RedWolf RedWolves

It is good that hybrid coyote DNA could be used to save the endangered red wolves. We are living in a great mass extinction, and we must use every resource to save as many species as possible and the habitat and ecosystems that they are a part of.

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