how2skinatiger:isthedogawolfdog:sisterofthewolves: Both of these animals belong to the Norwegian Man

how2skinatiger:isthedogawolfdog:sisterofthewolves: Both of these animals belong to the Norwegian Mangen pack (pictures taken in 2019). Looking at these pictures makes it kind of hard to believe the scientists’ claim that these are indeed pure wolves. Pure wolves do not have white markings like this. However, I wonder if it is possible that this is a mutation? Holy crap. I mean, they could be coywolves? Or they have recent dog in their lineage, frankly I’ve never seen a coloration like that on wolves without some other canine in the mix. The second image does look a bit dogish. No coyotes in Europe so dog hybrids would be the only option I’m currently writing an article on blue-eyed coyotes and I’m sort of struggling to find really well-agreed-upon scientific explanations for differences in canid phenotypes (or let’s limit it to colors.) On the one hand, dogs, wolves, and coyotes are completely interfertile (read that carefully, interfertile), meaning it’s genetically possible for a coydog to have babies with a coywolf and they can have babies with a wolfdog etc forever (other behavioral factors make it not-extremely-common, though.) I looked into the “domestication hypothesis” which is when animals are more friendly to humans they’ll develop associated characteristics like white spots, floppy, ears, blue eyes etc…but I don’t know if that’s really universally accepted among animals that are not selectively bred by humans? If friendliness and colors are truly linked, then you’ll see a disproportionate number of oddly-colored canids in your photos because those ones allowed themselves to be photographed. However the data is inherently troublesome, because how do you know the colors of animals you’re not photographing? Trail cams can help but tbh there are a lot more community scientists on iNaturalist than funded studies! And trail cams can also affect results because they might attract animals who are behaviorally different, ie more curious about novel human objects.  The third and safest answer is “it’s a mutation.” However that doesn’t tell you much because literally all characteristics are mutations. I also wonder if any of this is really specific to canids - they are special because they can breed with domestic animals, but there aren’t a lot of really highly-domesticated deer around for the deer populations to breed with. And yet piebald deer exist. If anyone has any reading to recommend about diverse canid coloration, especially if it can help regarding blue-eyed coyotes, and why this diversity persists, lmk! -- source link
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