非洲狼在埃塞俄比亚南部的阿比亚塔湖拍摄

Håkan Pohlstrand

Discovery of the African wolf

In 1820, two German scientists travelled to Egypt and East Africa on a scientific expedition. Wilhelm Friedrich Hemprich (a comparative physiologist) and Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (a comparative anatomist, famous also for his work on paleontological micro-organisms) made observations and collected both botanical and animal specimens.

Sadly, Hembrich did not survive the trip. Ehrenberg returned alone, and published papers on their findings in several volumes. In the volume on mammals of boreal Africa and western Asia (now available electronically athttps://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/) he described a canid (i.e. a member of the dog family) species as an Egyptian wolf,Canis lupaster, referring to its wolf like appearance.

During the 19^thcentury and early 20^th世纪,动物学家继续认识这个我dium-sized canid in Sub-Saharan Africa. Some scholars thought there were two species: the larger eastern form, the wolflupaster和一个较小的西方形式。一些人还认为，西方形态可能与亚洲发现的黄金jack狼相同。

当美国动物学博物馆动物学博物馆策展人格洛弗·莫里尔·艾伦（Glover Morrill Allen）于1939年出版了非洲哺乳动物的清单时，他完全省略了狼，并用欧亚金黄色jack狼（Eurasian Golden Jackal）代名词（Canis aureus）。This synonymy became commonly accepted. Interestingly, some physiological (e.g. Tembrock) and paleontological (e.g.Geraads 2011) works continued recognizing the African species as a separate one. This African species was most often calledCanis anthus。

粪便和头骨导致了非洲狼的重新发现

我们小组的成员研究了埃塞俄比亚的犬科动物，当时从Guassa Highlands收集的SCAT样本的DNA表现出与欧亚灰狼的相似之处。最初，这种粪便被认为是来自啮齿动物特殊稀有犬埃塞俄比亚狼（埃塞俄比亚狼（Canis Simensis）。该团队感到困惑但很感兴趣，决定遵循“黄金jack狼”，并成功地记录了其活动在内的视频记录。分析了该SCAT的DNA，令人惊讶的是，这与原始SCAT样本中的神秘狼DNA相匹配。首次获得了直接证明，表明埃塞俄比亚高地的“金狼”实际上是灰狼的近亲。

这位前非洲金Jackal被更名为非洲狼（Canis lupus lupaster) in thepaper published基于这些结果（Rueeneseset al.2011). Following this,Philippe Gaubert and co-authors, using the same mtDNA sequences, documented that the range of the African wolf extends to Algeria, Mali and Senegal. In 2015,Koepfliet al。提供了结果on the autosomal genes confirming the conclusion. No golden jackal genotypes were found in Africa. These authors also constructed a phylogeny demonstrating one million years of separate evolution for the African wolf.

In our new paper，然后我们对非洲狼进行了分类调查。分类分配的决定是通过与类型样本进行比较来做出的 - 当分类学家有疑问时，每个物种都有可以进行比较的类型。但是Canis anthus有问题。弗雷德里克·库维尔（Frederic Cuvier），他描述了该物种Canis anthus,归因于两个类型的标本，两种样品都丢失了。这两个也可能代表不同的物种。Canis anthusis clearly a nomen dubium (doubtful name).

The African wolf is rather theCanis lupasterof Hembrich and Ehrenberg: the type specimen was collected during their expedition and is housed in Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. It is a female with both the skull and skin preserved. The Museum has also over 100 African wolf skulls from different parts of the continent, and similar numbers of the Eurasian golden jackal. In addition to this material, we were able to study the canid skulls housed in all the major Fennoscandian museums, as well as those in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia.

我们对该物种进行了头骨和皮肤分类法评估，并与其他犬科动物进行了比较。我们的结论证实，非洲的黄金jack狼与欧亚大陆的黄金jack狼不同。这与我们的分子分析一致，该分子没有发现在非洲大陆上存在黄金jack狼的证据。

我们的研究展示了一个犬科专家熟悉的故事。非洲狼具有非常保守的形态，但是该物种内部的颅和牙齿形态存在显着差异。这解释了先前的混乱。需要进行仔细的分析以将样品分配给该物种，并了解其中的进化表型可塑性。

博物馆收藏和分类学的综合方法

An integrative approach, utilizing both molecular and morphological methods (in this case, skin and skull taxonomy), is necessary for proper taxonomic work. And proper taxonomic work is needed to understand species and their relationships. This kind of solid taxonomic work is also the basis for conservation efforts. Natural history museum collections must be utilized, as they often provide the best material for this work. Altogether, our work has provided a reclassification of the African wolf clarifying two centuries of wonder and confusion regarding the species.

Abundance and distribution of the African wolf is not currently known (https://www.iucnredlist.org/). Like its larger cousin in the Northern hemisphere, African wolves are flexible in their habitat use. They range from wooded areas to arid desert, and are found in high altitudes in the Ethiopian mountains, up to 3,800 kilometers. They seem able to accommodate close proximity to humans. However, they still suffer from habitat destruction, and the risk of extinction remains a threat. The fact that the African wolf is a representative species of a unique wolf radiation to Africa calls for an urgent conservation assessment and future studies of the species.

What have we learnt from this – over and beyond providing a proper description of the species Ruenesset al.（2011）发现？我们论文的标题指出：“重新发现被遗忘的犬科物种”。科学家充分利用了现代技术驱动的生物学发展（例如测序技术），科学家采用更古典的生物学方法，在合作时变得更加强大 - 就像我们在此方面所做的那样BMC Zoologycontribution.

Literature

• Cuvier，F。1820. Le Chacal de Sénégal, Femelle; pp. 1-3 in E. Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and F. Cuvier (eds.),Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères。A. Belin, Paris.
• Cuvier, F。1830. Chacal du Sénégal, Male; pp. 1-2 in E. Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and F. Cuvier (eds.),Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères。A. Belin, Paris.
• Hemprich, W. F。, and C. G. Ehrenberg. 1833. Symbolae Physicae, Mammalia, vol. 1, pt. 2, sig. K, Berlin.
• Gaubert, P., C。Bloch, S. Benyacoub, A. Abdelhamid, P. Pagani, C. A. Djagoun, A. Couloux, and S. Dufour. 2012.恢复非洲狼Canis lupus lupasterin North and West Africa: a mitochondrial lineage ranging more than 6,000 km wide。PLoS One7：E42740。
• Geraads, D.(2011).A revision of the fossil Canidae (Mammalia) of north‐western Africa。Palaeontology，54（2），429-446。
• 格罗夫斯，C。(2001).为什么分类稳定性是一个坏主意，或者为什么有那么少的灵长类动物（或那里？）。Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 10(6), 192-198.
• Koepfli，K。P。, B. Shapiro, F. Alvares, J. C. Brito, E. Geffen, J. A. Leonard, K. M. Helgen, W. E. Johnson, S. J. O’Brien, B. Van Valkenburgh, and R. K. Wayne. 2015.Genome-wide evidence reveals that African and Eurasian golden jackals are distinct species。Current Biology: 25:2158-65.
• IUCN:https://www.canids.org/species/view/PREKMW872861
• Padial，J。M。, Miralles, A., De la Riva, I., & Vences, M. (2010).The integrative future of taxonomy。Frontiers in Zoology, 7(1), 16.
• Rueness, E. K.,M. G. Asmyhr, C. Sillero-Zubiri, D. W. Macdonald, A. Bekele, A. Atickem, and N. C. Stenseth. 2011.The cryptic African wolf:Canis aureus lupasteris not a golden jackal and is not endemic to Egypt。PLoS One6:e16385.
• Tembrock, G.（1963）。哺乳动物的声学行为。Acoustic behaviour of animals，751-786。