Despite a common misconception, the dire wolf occupies a side branch of the canine evolutionary tree. Discover (and save!) While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Under the program known as de-extinction, it may be possible to bring the dire wolf back to life, presumably by combining intact scraps of Canis dirus DNA recovered from museum specimens with the genome of modern dogs. With such a big sample of dire wolf skeletal remains, paleontologists have been able to figure out quite a bit about their growth patterns, but of particular interest are the bacula of the male dire wolves. One of North America’s most famous ancient … This presumably increased their attractiveness during mating season and improved their ability to kill their prey. Like most other megafauna mammals of the late Pleistocene epoch, the dire wolf vanished shortly after the last Ice Age, most likely doomed by the disappearance of its accustomed prey (which either starved to death for lack of vegetation and/or were hunted to extinction by early humans). The species was considerably widespread, and skeletal remains have been found in Florida, the Mississippi River valley, and the Valley of Mexico. The dire wolf, an animal many people know from its fictional incarnation in “Game of Thrones” was a heavy-boned, powerful predator that roamed North America up … A Dire Wolf, posed next to the Iron Throne. https://www.thoughtco.com/facts-about-the-dire-wolf-1093336 (accessed February 11, 2021). It isn't directly ancestral to modern Dalmatians, Pomeranians, and Labradoodles, but is more of a great uncle a few times removed. He and the wolf then sit down for a game of cards, which casts some doubt on this song's scientific accuracy. Dire wolves came to the tar pits to eat, but many, many of them died. Direwolves are efficient solitary hunters and are extremely intelligent. What this means is that the dire wolf's diet consisted of at least 70 percent meat. Canis dirus, the dire wolf, had an estimated mass of 130 to 150 pounds, which made it about 25% heavier than the modern gray wolf (Canis lupus). The Big Dogs on "Game of Thrones" Are Dire Wolves. 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). Incidentally, the dire wolf in that post is a mini from Pathfinder Battles "Deep Cuts" line from WizKids, a company that also does official D&D minis. 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. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. (2020, August 26). Common Name: dire wolf. Dire wolves have lunged into the public imagination through their enormous and fearsome fictional representation in Game of Thrones.Though the show exaggerates their size… lupus) was a Late Pleistocene – early Holocene hypercarnivore similar in size to a large extant gray wolf.It had a shorter, broader palate with large carnassial teeth relative to its overall skull size. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/facts-about-the-dire-wolf-1093336. It was larger and had a more massive skull, a smaller brain, … Aenocyon dirus (Canis dirus) or «dire» wolf - one of the largest canine that ever lived on the Earth and the largest representative of the subfamily of wolf (Caninae). "10 Facts About the Dire Wolf." This predator had powerful, bone-crushing jaws and teeth, used mostly for scavenging rather than hunting. Strauss, Bob. Secondarily, hypercarnivores are distinguished by their large, slicing canine teeth, which evolved to cut easily through the flesh of prey. Dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus (Leidy, 1858)). Travel back in time to learn about this mysterious giant predator that haunts our nightmares only to vanish in a sudden genetic demise from earth’s landscape almost without a trace. Technically speaking, the dire wolf was "hypercarnivorous," which sounds a lot more frightening than it actually is. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The Dire Wolf Has Been Known by Various Names, The Dire Wolf Is the Subject of a Grateful Dead Song, The Dire Wolf Went Extinct at the End of the Last Ice Age, It May Be Possible to De-Extinct the Dire Wolf. It is probably the most common mammal to be found preserved in the La Brea Tar Pits in southern California. Bob Strauss is a science writer and the author of several books, including "The Big Book of What, How and Why" and "A Field Guide to the Dinosaurs of North America. Dire Wolf Project Site #2 at DireWolf Dogs of Vallecito breeding the world's best DireWolf Dogs. Dire Wolves deal high damage for their size and a pack of them along with their boost can cut down animals as strong as Triceratops to nothing. The Dire Wolf is a large wolf that lived from about a 100,000 to 10,000 years ago. Sadly, in terms of their survival, the Starks' dire wolves haven't fared much better than the Starks themselves as the series has progressed. 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. This would put the dire wolf closer to the mainstream of canine evolution than some other Pleistocene fauna; consider, for example, the famous bone-crushing dog ancestor Borophagus. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/animal/dire-wolf. Dire Wolves Had a Taste for Horses. 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. AD She began her experiment in 1987, thousands of years after its inspiration went extinct under circumstances that are still unclear. ", The Dire Wolf Was Remotely Ancestral to Modern Dogs, The Dire Wolf Competed for Prey With the Saber-Tooth Tiger. Despite their size, they tend to be gentle giants. Averaging about 1.5 metres (5 feet) in length and weighing about 57-79 kilograms (125-175 pounds), the Dire Wolf was roughly the size and weight of a human being, and would have been considerably more ferocious in one-on-one combat. This adaptation allowed it to prey and scavenge on Pleistocene megafauna.Such an adaptation is an example of phenotypic plasticity. ThoughtCo. They may even have stalked each other when extreme conditions left them no choice. 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. The Dire Wolf was larger than the Gray Wolf, averaging about 1.5 meters (5 ft) in length and weighing between 50 kg (110 lb) and more than 79 kg (174 lb). 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. The Dire Wolf is extinct but Lois Schwarz has REPLICATED the exact Dire Wolf bone measurements in the "American Alsatian" a new breed of companion dog. Left to its own devices a solitary direwolf may join a pack of common wolves and establish dominance over it thanks to its Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. The real dire wolf is estimated to have weighed between 150-240 pounds, with thicker, heavier bones than the gray wolf. The most dangerous extinct cat of the Pleistocene epoch – Smilodon also known as the Saber Toothed Tiger faces off with the Dire Wolf. A dire wolf that hits with a bite attack can attempt to trip its opponent (+11 check modifier) as a free action without making a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity. Order: Carnivora Family: Canidae Temporal range: during the late Pleistocene (North America) Dimensions: length - 1,6 m, height - 85 сm, weight - 90 kg. Over 200,000 of them have been taken out of the site. It lives on in both popular lore and pop culture (as evidenced by its cameo role on the HBO series "Game of Thrones"). Clearly, these two predators shared the same habitat, and hunted the same assortment of prey animals. A kinder, gentler, cuddlier dire wolf. More likely, though, scientists would first choose to "de-breed" modern canines into something closely approximating their gray wolf forebears. Fans of the Grateful Dead are likely familiar with a track from the Grateful Dead's landmark 1970 album "Workingman's Dead." Who Would Have Won a Dire Wolf vs. Saber-Toothed Tiger Faceoff? It was only in the 1980s that all these species and genera were re-attributed, for good, back to the easier-to-pronounce Canis dirus. Some may have weighed up to 200 pounds, though 100 to 150 pounds was normal. Although the dire wolf didn’t specialize in any particular prey, it appears to have preferred feeding on ruminants such as the bison. The dire wolf's teeth didn't only slice through the flesh of the average prehistoric horse or Pleistocene pachyderm; paleontologists speculate that Canis dirus may also have been a "bone-crushing" canid, extracting the maximum nutritional value from its meals by crushing its prey's bones and eating the marrow inside. 280 talking about this. As the genus Canis goes, the dire wolf was pretty big. It is probably the most common mammalian species to be found preserved in the La Brea Tar Pits in southern California. The study, which puts to bed a mystery that biologists have pondered for more than 100 years, was led by researchers from UCLA, … Corrections? 10 Facts About the Dire Wolf.