from Hacker News

New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

by anishkothari on 10/30/15, 2:02 AM with 140 comments

• by blisterpeanuts on 10/30/15, 4:37 AM

  One outcome of this interbreeding is that these animals have lost their fear of people, but they retain their predatory instincts, making them quite dangerous.

  There are coyotes in the northern part of Nova Scotia that have attacked lone hikers. A woman was killed, in fact a few years ago, and there have been numerous scary encounters in which the animal creeps closer and closer to a wary human, much like a predator approaching its prey.

  The coyotes in this part of Canada are said to have interbred with dogs; it's not clear that these are the wolf-coyote-dog hybrids described in the article, but anyway these animals harassing hikers have been hanging out in the forested national park, as wolves would do.

  Park rangers have tried to control the population, with varying results. Simply shooting a few of the coyotes actually can backfire; it seems to stimulate larger litters to replenish the population.

  We might have to return to the pioneer approach of shooting them on sight, and hope this instills a healthy fear of humans as they once had. It's good having them around, because they control the rodent population which is a vector for disease bearing ticks and other problems. We just don't want them stalking our children in the local park.

• by rwhitman on 10/30/15, 7:29 AM

  In eastern Los Angeles, coyotes are everywhere, to the point where in some areas you run into them constantly day or night. They're stealthy - silent and very calculating. You can tell many of them are part domestic dog and they don't seem phased by proximity to people and appear to understand the workings of the city to some extent. I have seen the mentioned looking both ways when crossing roads, and also use of sidewalks.

  Coyotes are very good at not calling attention to themselves when needed. In fact I lived next to a den of them in LA for years and never heard a peep, despite seeing them staking me out from my neighbor's roof in broad daylight, testing the perimeters of my house more than a few times.

  The thing is they're smarter than we give them credit, adapting to the man made environment and expand territory very quickly. We talk about controlling their population but they can parry - adeptly skilled at out-maneuvering people. Hold eye contact and you realize even though they look like a little dog, they're not your friend - they're studying you.

  The speed at which they're expanding territory and where they're headed on the East coast now, is interesting. Growing up in southeastern Pennsylvania we never saw coyotes really, but in the last few years I'm hearing lots of stories about them from family. And now even here in NYC they're making an appearance as well.

  The coyote / dog mix in LA seemed to not only have adapted to urban areas but use it to their advantage. Now add wolf to the mix and drop them in the environs of bountiful woodland and endless suburban sprawl of the eastern seaboard, what happens?

  If an apex predator were to adapt into becoming an anthropocene survivor species, a prerequisite would be having intelligence enough to outwit humans. A species partly forged in human company, with increased intelligence, that uses our own environment as an advantage, and can hunt and eat us. Oh and reach full maturity in about a year. They may seem cute now, but give them a few generations and they might not be so cute any more.

• by codezero on 10/30/15, 4:24 AM

  Check out Nature: Meet the Coy-wolf if you have Netflix (presumably in the US only)

  Also, available here: http://video.pbs.org/video/2365159966/ (not sure if region restricted, sorry)

  This page has a bunch of other resources: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/coywolf-meet-the-coywolf/8605...

• by mhartl on 10/30/15, 5:41 AM

  In a parallel development, a hybrid pigeon, hawk, and roadrunner—the "pigeawkrunner"—has emerged in the same environments as the coywolf. Reports that the coywolf's attempts to catch the pigeawkrunner frequently backfire, resulting in deadly if amusing rock-falls, are as yet unsubstantiated.

• by iamthepieman on 10/30/15, 12:40 PM

  used to go out with two of my brothers in the fields near our house in northern Vermont. The grass was chest height on a full grown man with some shorter spots where clover or ragweed or shorter grasses had taken root.

  We would hear the coyotes howling over the ridge and go to the middle of the field and call them. When they crested the ridge to investigate we would crouch down really low on all fours with our eyes down. They would creep up on us with two or three going off to our flanks. When they got close enough we would stand up, wave our arms and hoot and holler, scaring them off. It was probably foolish for many reasons but we were in our late teens or early twenties and thought that a three on three mano-e-pata match was no contest in our favor.

  We didn't do this often but it happend more than once.

• by GigabyteCoin on 10/30/15, 6:54 AM

  So this is why we have been noticing exponentially more "coyotes" roaming around the suburbs of the GTA recently?

  My girlfriend was walking our dog last week and saw 3 of them within an hour. The next morning she saw 2.

  The other day I was walking the dog and some kid stopped me to warn me about a "wolf" that was growling at him around the corner.

  This is all within steps of our small "downtown" and I just kept thinking how strange it was to see so many of them in such a short period of time. I have lived here all my life and I don't think that I have ever seen a single "coyote" in the flesh.

  Looks like it's time to start carrying some pepper spray on my usual dog walks? The thought of watching some wild animal devour my dog (or me) is terrifying.

• by joeclark77 on 10/30/15, 6:12 AM

  Never heard of these being called "coywolf", but it's been known for a while that eastern coyotes are partly mixed with wolves. Good for them, too. Western coyotes are kind of wimpy. Now if we could breed the coyote with various bears, North America might start to rival Africa for impressive and fearsome predators.

• by sarciszewski on 10/30/15, 1:56 PM

  Somewhere on the Internet, a furry just gained yet another fursona.

  > LIKE some people who might rather not admit it, wolves faced with a scarcity of potential sexual partners are not beneath lowering their standards.

  Oddly appropriate.

  EDIT: Nevermind, looks like they have at least 3 years on this joke: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/9465519/

• by frozenport on 10/30/15, 7:17 AM

  The wolf, dingo, dog, coyote, and golden jackal diverged relatively recently, around three to four million years ago, and all have 78 chromosomes arranged in 39 pairs.[6] This allows them to hybridize freely (barring size or behavioral constraints) and produce fertile offspring.

• by cpfohl on 10/30/15, 12:02 PM

  I live (and grew up in) in Central New York (as in: middle of Upstate New York). We've had "coydogs" as long as I remember. I sort of assumed it was a myth, in fact I remember being told it was a myth and that they were just plain coyotes.

  Then again, the kids also claimed that they were faster, smarter, and would hunt humans...so there was definitely some mythology going on.

• by fumar on 10/30/15, 2:46 PM

  There is a great PBS Nature episode on the Coywolf. There is footage of these animals leaving in close proximity to humans near major cities.

  Link:http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/coywolf-meet-the-coywolf/8605...

• by bordercases on 10/30/15, 4:04 AM

  What a beautiful creature!

• by ChuckMcM on 10/30/15, 5:26 AM

  I find these stories intriguing. Several have come together over the last decade or so, this one, the bear hunt in Florida because of too many bears, the Burmese Pythons in the Everglades eating everything, mountain lions living in many parts of the Bay Area near people, the rat explosion in NYC.

  All wildlife finding a niche in the urban and suburban world we've created and retaking territory originally ceded during an aggressive hunting and trapping phase of our existence.

  Once we become the hunted what then? We have not yet seen these animals predating on the homeless but I expect it's only a matter of time.

• by transfire on 10/30/15, 4:39 AM

  Technically not a new species, rather a new subspecies.

• by deadprogram on 10/31/15, 3:07 PM

  Fascinating. I have had a number of urban close encounters with coyotes in the west US, and the prospect of a similar animal but with less fear of human is certainly concerning.

• by Houshalter on 10/30/15, 8:48 AM

  Hybridization is super interesting from an evolutionary perspective. Two populations can evolve down very different paths. Evolving all sorts of new genes and adaptions. Then hybridization mixes it all up. And over time, the best combination of genes from both species will be selected for. Creating something more fit than either of the original species.

• by __david__ on 10/30/15, 6:36 AM

  Coywolf isn't a very good name—I think Wolfote rolls off the tongue much better.

• by leroy_masochist on 10/30/15, 6:39 AM

  It's becoming more of a problem in northwestern Connecticut for sure.

• by vpribish on 10/30/15, 4:16 AM

  aww... I've have reached my article limit.

• by gricardo99 on 10/30/15, 4:22 AM

  And part human! (Come on it's almost Halloween)