Falkland Islands Wolf
396345
224001969
2008-07-06T22:06:08Z
MacRusgail
238113
/* External links */ add FI template, + history of the islands cat, as it is something of a mystery
{{Taxobox
| name = Falkland Islands Wolf<ref name=msw3>{{MSW3 Wozencraft | id=14000798}}</ref>
| status = EX
| extinct = [[1876]]
| status_system = iucn2.3
| status_ref = <ref name=iucn>{{IUCN2006|assessors=Canid Specialist Group|year=2004|id=6923|title=Dusicyon australis|downloaded=11 May 2006}} Database entry includes justification as to why this species is listed as extinct</ref>
| image = FalklandIslandFox2.jpg
| image_width = 250px
| image_caption = Illustration by [[John Gerrard Keulemans]] (1842-1912)
| regnum = [[Animal]]ia
| phylum = [[Chordate|Chordata]]
| classis = [[Mammal]]ia
| ordo = [[Carnivora]]
| familia = [[Canidae]]
| genus = ''[[Dusicyon]]''
| species = '''''D. australis'''''
| binomial = ''Dusicyon australis''
| binomial_authority = ([[Robert Kerr (writer)|Kerr]], [[1792]])
| range_map = LocationFalklandIslands.png
| range_map_width = 250px
| range_map_caption = Location of the Falkland Islands
}}
The '''Falkland Islands Wolf''' (''Dusicyon australis''), also known as the '''Warrah''' and occasionally as the '''Falkland Islands Dog''', '''Falkland Islands Fox''' or '''Antarctic Wolf''', was the only native land [[mammal]] of the [[Falkland Islands]]. This [[endemic (ecology)|endemic]] [[canidae|canid]] became [[extinction|extinct]] in [[1876]] (on [[West Falkland]] island), the only known canid to have gone extinct in historical times. It was the only modern [[species]] in the [[genus]] '''''Dusicyon'''''. The most closely related genus is ''[[Lycalopex]]'', including the [[Culpeo]], which itself has been introduced to the Falkland Islands in modern times. It was known from both [[West Falkland|West]] and [[East Falkland]], but it is unknown if the varieties were much differentiated.
The fur of the Falkland Islands Wolf had a tawny [[colour]]. The tip of the tail was white. The diet is unknown. Due to the absence of native [[rodent]]s on the Falklands, its diet probably consisted of ground-nesting [[bird]]s such as [[goose|geese]] and [[penguin]]s, grubs and [[insect]]s, as well as [[seashore]] [[scavenger|scavenging]].<ref name=Allen>{{cite book | author = Allen, G.M. | title = Extinct and Vanishing Mammals of the Western Hemisphere | year = 1942}}</ref> It was sometimes said to have dwelt in burrows.
==History==
The first recorded sighting was by Capt. John Strong in [[1692]].<ref>[http://www.messybeast.com/extinct/warrah.htm#prof Capt. Strong]</ref> [[Louis Antoine de Bougainville]], who established the first settlement in the Falkland Islands termed it a ''loup-renard'' ("[[fox]]-[[wolf]]") When [[Charles Darwin]] visited the islands in [[1833]] he named the species ''Canis antarcticus'' and described it as common and tame. The settlers regarded the wolf as a threat to their [[sheep]] and organised poisoning and shooting on a massive scale. The absence of [[forest]]s led to the speedy success of the extermination campaign. This was facilitated by the animal's tameness, as is common in [[island|insular]] species due to the absence of predators - trappers would lure the animal with a chunk of meat held in one hand, and kill it with a [[knife]] or stick held in the other. However, it would defend itself from humans occasionally if it needed to, as Admiral George Grey noted when they landed on West Falkland at [[Port Edgar (Falkland Islands)]] on December 17, 1836 -
:"I landed in the creek and had hardly put a foot on shore, when one of the foxes of the country was chased by Pilot. I ran up as they were fighting and came to the poor dog's assistance who had nearly met his match, and a [[rifle]] ball soon settled the business, but the Pilot had received a terrible bite in the leg."
A live wolf was taken to London Zoo, [[England]] in [[1868]], but survived only a few years.<ref>http://www.messybeast.com/extinct/warrah.htm</ref> In [[1880]], post-extinction, [[Thomas Huxley]] classified it as related to the [[Coyote]]. In 1914, Oldfield Thomas moved it into the genus ''Dusicyon'', with the Culpeo and other South American foxes. (These other [[canid]]s have since been removed to ''[[Lycalopex]]''.)
===Darwin's description===
Darwin writing about his 1834 visit to the Falklands in his ''Journal and Remarks'' (''[[The Voyage of the Beagle]]'') has the following to say of ''Canis antarcticus'' -
{{quotation|The only quadruped native to the island, is a large wolf-like fox, which is common to both [[East Falkland|East]] and [[West Falkland]]. have no doubt it is a peculiar species, and confined to this archipelago; because many sealers, [[Gaucho]]s, and [[Yahgan|Indians]], who have visited these islands, all maintain that no such animal is found in any part of South America. [[Juan Ignacio Molina|Molina]], from a similarity in habits, thought this was the same with his "''[[culpeo|culpeu]]''"; but I have seen both, and they are quite distinct. These wolves are well known, from Byron's account of their tameness and curiosity; which the sailors, who ran into the water to avoid them, mistook for fierceness. To this day their manners remain the same. They have been observed to enter a tent, and actually pull some meat from beneath the head of a sleeping seaman. The Gauchos, also, have frequently killed them in the evening, by holding out a piece of meat in one hand, and in the other a knife ready to stick them. As far as I am aware, there is no other instance in any part of the world, of so small a mass of broken land, distant from a continent, possessing so large a quadruped peculiar to itself. Their numbers have rapidly decreased; they are already banished from that half of the island which lies to the eastward of the neck of land between [[Salvador Water|St. Salvador Bay]] and [[Berkeley Sound]]. Within a very few years after these islands shall have become regularly settled, in all probability this fox will be classed with the [[dodo]], as an animal which has perished from the face of the earth. Mr. Lowe, an intelligent person who has long been acquainted with these islands, assured me, that all the foxes from the western island were smaller and of a redder colour than those from the eastern. In the four specimens which were brought to England in the Beagle there was some variation, but the difference with respect to the islands could not be perceived. At the same time the fact is far from improbable.<ref name=Darwin1839>{{Cite book | last= Darwin | first= Charles | author-link=Charles Darwin | year= 1839 | title=Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagle's circumnavigation of the globe. Journal and remarks. 1832-1836. ([[The Voyage of the Beagle]]) | location = London | publisher=Henry Colburn | volume=III | pages = [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F10.3&pageseq=268 149-150]}}</ref>}}
==Evolution==
When organising his notes on the last stage of [[Second voyage of HMS Beagle|the ''Beagle'' expedition]], Darwin wrote of his growing suspicions that the [[Galápagos Islands]] [[mockingbird]]s and [[Galápagos tortoise|tortoises]] differed depending on which island they came from:
{{quotation|When I see these Islands in sight of each other, & possessed of but a scanty stock of animals, tenanted by these birds but slightly differing in structure & filling the same place in Nature, I must suspect they are only varieties. The only fact of a similar kind of which I am aware is the constant asserted difference between the wolf-like Fox of East & West Falkland Islds. If there is the slightest foundation for these remarks the zoology of Archipelagoes will be well worth examining; for such facts [would] undermine the stability of Species.<ref name=Keynes>{{Citation | last= Darwin | first= Charles | author-link=Charles Darwin | year= 1836 | publication-date= 2000 | contribution=June – August 1836 | contribution-url=http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1840&viewtype=text&pageseq=23 | editor-last=Keynes | editor-first= Richard | title=Charles Darwin’s zoology notes & specimen lists from H.M.S. Beagle. | publication-place= Cambridge | publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref> }}
The term "would" was added after the words had been written, suggesting a cautious retraction from his initial bold statement.<ref name=Eldredge>{{Citation | last = Eldredge | first = Niles | author-link =Niles Eldredge | publication-date = Spring 2006 | pages = 32–53 | title = VQR - Confessions of a Darwinist | publisher = The Virginia Quarterly Review | url =http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2006/spring/eldredge-confessions-darwinist/ | accessdate =2008-04-15}}</ref> He later wrote that such facts “seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species”.<ref name=Darwin1859>{{Citation | last = Darwin | first = Charles | author-link =Charles Darwin | year = 1859
| title =[[On the Origin of Species]] by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life | edition =1st | publication-place = London | publisher =John Murray | url =http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F373&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 | accessdate = | pages = [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F373&viewtype=text&pageseq=16 p. 1]}}</ref>
It has been speculated that the unusual distribution of this animal (the only other canine species native to [[ocean]]ic islands are the [[Island Fox]] of California, and [[Darwin's Fox]] of Chile - but these habitats are not as remote as the Falklands) and some details of the [[skull]] suggest that it originally arrived with [[Indigenous peoples|natives]] visiting the islands and was kept by them as a [[pet]] in a semi-domesticated state. If that is true, the progenitor form from mainland [[South America]] would have become extinct during the last [[Ice Age]]. [[DNA]] analysis of museum specimens have proved rather inconclusive as to the exact relationship of this animal, some even suggesting [[Hybrid (biology)|hybridization]] (during the [[domestication]] process) with a relative or progenitor of the Coyote; it is not known whether this would have been biologically possible. Another possibility is that, during an [[Ice Age]], a [[land bridge]] between Falkland Islands and South America enabled its ancestors to traverse the distance. At any rate, the Falkland Island Wolf is a [[Biogeography|biogeographical]] mystery.
==Commemorations==
Locations:
* [[Fox Bay]], a bay and settlement on [[West Falkland]]
* [[Warrah River]], West Falkland
Other:
* The Falkland fifty [[pence]] piece features the Warrah
* ''The Warrah'', a Falkland Islands' [[Wildlife conservation|conservation]] magazine [http://www.falklandsconservation.com/publications/warrah-index.html]
* "Warrah Knitwear", a company formerly based in Fox Bay.
* "Warrah Design", a company based in Fox Bay
==References==
{{reflist}}
* {{1911}} ("Falkland Islands")
==External links==
{{wikispecies|Dusicyon australis}}
*[http://www.falklandsconservation.com/ Falklands Conservation]
*[http://www.messybeast.com/extinct/warrah.htm Site, includes three pictures of the Warrah]
{{Canidae extinct nav}}
{{Falkland Islands topics}}
[[Category:Extinct carnivores]]
[[Category:Fauna of the Falkland Islands]]
[[Category:History of the Falkland Islands]]
[[Category:Extinct animals of South America]]
[[Category:Foxes]]
[[Category:Recent extinctions]]
[[br:Louarn an Inizi Maloù]]
[[cs:Pes bojovný]]
[[de:Falklandfuchs]]
[[es:Dusicyon australis]]
[[fr:Loup des Falkland]]
[[it:Dusicyon australis]]
[[he:שועל מאלוויני]]
[[hu:Falklandi pamparóka]]
[[nl:Falklandwolf]]
[[no:Falklandsulv]]
[[pl:Wilk falklandzki]]
[[pt:Raposa-das-falkland]]
[[ru:Фолклендская лисица]]
[[simple:Falkland Island Fox]]
[[sv:Falklandsräv]]
[[tr:Falkland tilkisi]]