Jul 31, 2015 - African and Eurasian golden jackals are genetically distinct lineages, according to a research team led by Dr Klaus-Peter Koepfli from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and Dr Robert Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles.

“This represents the first discovery of a ‘new’ canid species in Africa in over 150 years,” said Dr Koepfli, first author of a study published in the journal Current Biology.
The study was inspired by two recent reports suggesting that the African golden jackal was actually a cryptic subspecies of gray wolf. Those studies were based on an analysis restricted to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).
“Two recent studies based on mtDNA reported that the larger-sized golden jackals from Ethiopia and North and West Africa were more closely related to gray wolves than to other populations of golden jackals, suggesting that some populations of African golden jackals represent a cryptic subspecies of gray wolf, designated the African wolf (Canis lupus lupaster),” the scientists said.
“These results were consistent with earlier findings based on morphological and zoogeographic evidence that had suggested the large jackals of Egypt (Canis aureus lupaster) were actually a small-sized subspecies of gray wolf.”
To expand the DNA evidence in the new study, Dr Koepfli, Dr Wayne and their colleagues retrieved and analyzed DNA samples of golden jackals collected twenty years ago in Kenya.
“To our surprise, the small, golden-like jackal from eastern African was actually a small variety of a new species, distinct from the gray wolf, that has a distribution across North and East Africa,” Dr Wayne said.
The scientists have named this previously unrecognized species the African golden wolf (Canis anthus).
They suspect that taxonomists had mistaken African and Eurasian golden jackals for the same species because of a high degree of similarity in their skull and tooth morphology.
However, the genetic data supports the idea that they are in fact two separate lineages that have been evolving independently for at least a million years.
In fact, the new canid family tree suggests that these two lineages aren’t even closely related. The African species is more closely related to the lineage leading to gray wolves and coyotes than jackals, which explains their new designation as African golden wolves.
“Our nuclear DNA analyses indicate that the African golden wolf lineage split from the gray wolf plus coyote clade about 1.0 – 1.7 million years ago during the Pleistocene,” the researchers said.
“More broadly, our phylogenetic analyses suggest that extant wolf-like canids have colonized Africa from Eurasia at least five times throughout the Pliocene and Pleistocene, which is consistent with fossil evidence suggesting that much of African canid fauna diversity resulted from the immigration of Eurasian ancestors, likely coincident with Plio-Pleistocene climatic oscillations between arid and humid conditions.”
The discovery increases the overall biodiversity of the Canidae – the group including dogs, wolves, foxes, and jackals – from 35 living species to 36.
“We will continue to study the relationships among golden jackal and wolf lineages in Africa, Eurasia, and the Middle East,” the scientists said.