The Falklands Wolf and the Land Bridge
Summary:
National Geographic blogger Ed Yong has written a highly readable account of a paper in Nature about Darwin's dog—not the great naturalist's pet, but a strange doglike animal found by the first visitors to the remote Falkland Islands, off southern Argentina. The Falklands wolf, Dusicyon australis, was slaughtered to extinction in the 1800s, but Charles Darwin collected a specimen during HMS Challenger's visit in 1834. Now DNA from museum specimens have shown that D. australis shared ancestors with a mainland South American cousin, the equally extinct D. avus, just 16,300 years ago. It walked to the Falklands during a time in the ice age when the sea was exceptionally low, making it a newly documented example of land-bridge dispersal....Read Full Post
Content analysis:
Geographic context:
Location | Country | Latitude | Longitude |
Argentina | AR | -37.0907 | -63.5848 |
Darwin | US | 36.2689 | -117.593 |
Falkland Islands | FK | -51.8006 | -58.721 |
United States | US | 37.1679 | -95.845 |
Keywords:
, 1800s, ancestors, blogger Ed Yong, Charles Darwin, DNA, Dusicyon australis, equally extinct D., extinction, falklands wolf, Geographic, great naturalist, highly readable account, HMS Challenger, ice age, land-bridge dispersal, museum specimens, National, Nature, newly documented example, paper, pet, remote Falkland Islands, South American cousin, southern Argentina, strange doglike animal, time, visit, visitors