Coyotes w/Wolf DNA?

R

rws2

New member
In the attacks post it was mentioned that Eastern Coyotes have Wolf DNA and that was one of the reasons they are so much bigger than there Western cousins.
Anybody know for sure if this is true??? or is this just media hype.
 
Research has shown that there is some Wolf DNA in some of the Eastern Coyotes. If you do a YAHoo.com search you will see a great reference of it. Now, If that is what directly makes them bigger could probably be debatable.

Something to think about:
If a white dog and a black dog breed, do you get brown dogs or dogs that are half white and half black or ????? (Mendels Pea's)

Environmental conditions would have an impact on average size over time with a constrained breeding population. A small body doesnt retain heat as well, due to the relative surface-area ratio, and therefore there is an advantage to being bigger body-sized in relatively colder environments.
 
Robb: I checked with my state wildlife biologist again and he said your point about them being larger in body size because of the cold is well taken,however,he says the coyotes we have in New Hampshire haven't been around long enough to have evolved to that size simply because of the cold,there must be other factors involved.Most people who don't know better that see a coyote around here will swear til the day they die that they saw a wolf,including my wife.
 
One thing to consider though, is that NH isnt the only place with relatively larger coyotes. (Not like they got on a plane here in PHX and landed in NH, haha they do ride commuter trains in Seattle though, no kidding about that...) If you could track the expansion paths that led to NH you might be able to attach a longer time period with the same environmental condition and size trendd that might show a relatively larger body size.

For the sake of discussion, how many folks have seen REAL wolves on a regular enough basis in your area that they could make a genuine comparison ? Kinda like the excited rookie fisherman that is really bummed to find out his 5lb bass only weighs 3 lbs on the scale. Excited people, unfortunately can be less than optimum witnesses (Courts are full of such examples)

What did he offer you as a plausible reason ? anything ? Did he tell you "It depends"

I would positively agree in that there is most likely more than one factor involved in the Delta.

Id be curious to see just what makes up the delta, is it bone, tissue, fat, skin, water-weight or is the whole coyote proportionately bigger, relative to the smaller individuals ? (Youd have to do some cutting grinding and dehydrating probably but a diligent and motivated individual could make those measurements)
 
When you see a wolf no matter what color, the thing that sets them apart I think, is how long their legs are. Then thier tracks are huge compared to a coyote's. Here in Mt. they are every where
 
I would probably recognize a wolf if I saw one, but mainly because I see so many coyotes, Id probably pick up that "thats a funny looking coyote, hmmmm wait-a-minute.... what the helll is that" and I would take a more examining look.

But what if you dont see either critter on a frequent basis and most of your experience comes from what you see on TV... which is just barely "most people" since an even wider group is even more ignorant than that to Wildlife ?

SO:

can the average person be expected to reliably note the difference in fleeting circumstances ? Down here I EXPECT to see coyotes not wolves... what if I was in an area that in "past days" a person would more likely EXPECT to see a wolf and not a coyote ? Whats a nautral first conclusion ?

and why do fish tales get "bigger" instead of smaller anyway ? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
All canids (including wolves and coyotes) are decended from common ancestry, heck my dog has wolf DNA...

So the real question would be how much of their DNA string is directly from the wolf and how much of it is recessive, and more importantly what does each piece of the chain do?

We could say the size comes from wolf DNA but how do we know the DNA that seems most connected to the wolf isn't a trigger for sense of smell, or for the arched nose common to wolves, hairy feet, or even long guard hairs?

With the chain of DNA for a given mammal being some two or three hundred pieces long and us being able to reconstruct only small pieces of it, it is pure speculation... and most of this speculation is being done by amature genetisists.

Bermann's Rule (the farther from the equator a critter lives the larger it's body mass...) pretty much answers why coyotes in the east are bigger to me...
Take central California and West Virginia, for example, about the same latitude but the weather in the east is much harsher, hense the coyotes are slightly larger by average. With the largest in the east being only about ten percent bigger than the largest in the west.

Yes there is a larger food base for the eastern coyotes (with all the road killed deer, and human waste) but food sources have a lot more to do with population growth, than it does overall size.

And you guys out east are the first to say you don't have the population numbers we do here in the west, so somebody's math doesn't jibe here...

Just my .02

Jeff :wave:
 
I don't know about population numbers, but I do know I saw a heck of a lot more coyotes the week I spent out west last week than I've seen in my life here. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Thanks Robb,

I noticed that, and must've picked up the misspelling there too. I am dyslexic, and type pretty slow, so I use cut and paste for a lot of words. (imagine how long it must take me to write one of these? lol)
But I originally picked the theory up from Gerry Blair's book, and just went and re-read that part...
He calls it Bergstrom's rule!?! LOL

So who knows what the spelling is? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

So I suppose you noticed at "that other place", where someone said they have identified something like 16 subspecies of coyotes?

Didn't the coyote in the east make an "end around" run through northern Canada or something like that? I mean yes a coyote did hop a train here once, but it's not like they got on I-90 and headed to Pennsilvania or anything...

So it would seem to me that ________'s rule (which almost all hunters and high school biology students know) is even more likely to be the actual deal.
And that the more aggressive behavior might be due to familiarity with humans due to more crowded conditions from urban sprawl, much like in southern Califonia, where attacks on pet's and children in broad daylight are becoming more and more common.

They also discussed at "that other place" (which is a nice place) something to the effect of... the skinned out carcasses without the longer thicker hair a fatted hides were weighing much closer to the same.

And then there is, as Gerry himself pointed out so well, honesty, intended and not... "an acurate scale can cause a 20 pound fox to reduce by half"

I saw the same thing happen to some of the best, at the NW Rendezvous... some guesses were tossed around, and those dogs all weighed a lot less then the numbers tossed out, they must've dried out like bass on a sunny day! lol The grizzled old vet's like Curt and Jerry, and a couple others were close, but all the rest of em....

So until they start doing a "creel count" type of data gathering with a sampling of genetic material (like the way the fishchecker here will take some fishscales and weight and size measurements of all the fish cuaght in some sports fisheries) from hides or carcasses we will never know for sure if they are wolves or beagles...

As for the question of media hype I would say yes... and the media is the internet! HAHAhaha

Look up there a couple posts Bopeye (not to pick on you, this is just in fun) wants everybody to know there is an invisible line across the continent that magically make coyotes smaller, dumber, more prolific breeders, and that they don't require "nearly the skills needed back East" to kill... heck the guys in Pa want y'all to know we have suicidal yotes, linin' up at the ends of our barrels! LOL

So maybe this comes down to egos as much as genetics... a little friendly east west rivalry?
Because even you, Robb, gotta admit eastern dudes are just a bunch of sissies, especially the southeast! The west would chew 'em up... that's why they stayed back there! Hahaha

ANY of you guys is welcome to come stay at my house, take me out here in MY part of the west and show me how good you are! I'll pack lunch! I could surely use some schoolin'!

Jeff /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

P.S. I didn't know you frequented "that other place"... Lots of other guys from this site do... That is a great discussion about this very subject isn't it?
 
I think KrustyKlimber, and therefore Bergmann, might be on to something--the colder/harsher the environment, the bigger the coyote. Arizona, from what I've seen, has very small coyotes...the Midwest has medium-sized coyotes, but Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, etc., have somewhat
larger "mountain coyotes", and the Eastern states' coyotes are larger, too. Hmmm... Some sort of correlation here?
 
These are some exellent replys,I know I sure don't have the answers but I do know our coyotes are a good bit bigger than say the ones in AZ.
I suspect the small ones killed around here usually by deer hunters are young of the year (guessing on that)I also know that 50lb.+ males are fairly common and although I can't verify this there are reports of coyotes over 70lbs. killed in the New England states(probably not too many).
This is an interesting subject at least for me.
Does anyone know what the largest coyote weighed in at on certified scales was???
 
I just talked to NEW HAMPSHIRE FISH AND GAME and I was told 65 to 70 pound males are shot quite frequently and the officer I talked to said the record is 80+ pounds but I'd have to wait til thursday to get the official weight from the state wildlife biologist. I shot a 45 pound female myself (weighed on a grain scale)late last winter so we do get some big ones. As far as accounting for size there are good points on this post. My question on the cold affecting size is this,if the coyotes,deer,moose,etc. in the north are bigger,why hasn't the same thing happened to foxes,bobcats,and such over the years? What picques my interest in the WOLF DNA theory is that the coyotes we have around here seem to travel in larger packs of 4 or 5 animals. I remember last year opening day of muzzleloader deer season at 4:30 A.M. walking to my stand and seeing that there are 3 or 4 pair of yellow eyes circling around made me nervous. Robb,I like your posts,you seem knowledgable and open minded. I don't want everyone to think the coyotes around here are all 1/2 wolf or anything but I guarantee that they have more wolf DNA than your family pet as one person posted.
 
MM,

Im certainly not disputing the content of Wolf DNA in coyotes in your area. But as Krusty stated, the DNA's presence vs actual expression of any genes, is where things get complicated. Thats why I included my initial example of the White Dog mating with a Black dog, what are the results, etc etc...

See if you can get the NH Fish and Game guys to give you their best explanantion as to the size difference, Im curious in what they respond with. Again, I would agree its not a single factor most likely.

How big are your Foxes and Bobcats ? You raise an intersting point that I think deserves some attention there. What kind of Fox btw ?

Interestingly, Canis familiaris (domestic dog) is probably not even a vaild species anymore, as its now being considered in many circles as a "race" of Wolf (Canis lupus), with most origins being traced back to East-Central Asia, if I remember right and completely (and I did, post bumped up /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif ). That even the Native Americans dogs came across the land-bridge (or however) with them, as opposed to domesticating any America's wolves. Mitochondrial DNA analysis on the paths of origin.

We get groups of coyotes in 4 and 5's running around here in AZ, so Im not too sure how much of an indicator we can use that as... Apparently, according to historic accounts, coyotes have been known to have more of a pack behavior than what we see now and is still witnessed in cold and environments with low human exposure. Ill bump the thread up... its a good one that I think will be valuable to this discussion.
 
Robb: Thanks for the reply,they are always thought provoking and not antagonistic like some forums. It's just cool to be able to discuss and ask or answer questions about things we share a common interest in. Getting a little debate going and bringing up other possibilities only helps us all gain more knowledge and most importantly,camaraderie,right? Nature is unpredictable and always changing so letting other guys know some of the things we've seen maybe makes them watch for changes in behavior as well.
 
Here in nebraska we got some big coyotes in western nebraska. I personally have not seen them but my dad goes out there and hunts deer and he swears there wolves but the game and parks swears there just really big coyotes. In the last few years i have learned not to trust what our game and parks says, they tried saying there were no mountian lions around but everyone was saying they've seen em and they never beleived them until they started bringing in pics and video tapes.
 
Krusty,
You completely missed my point, but since I'm from out west originally I understand why. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I'm not even going to try and reiterate what I was attempting to say. Computers are just too impersonal sometimes to try and convey your thoughts. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Good hunting to all and may you solve the riddle. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Hmmm! Colder climate... larger animals. Works for deer, moose but it sure don't work for coyotes around here. A huge coyote here is only about 40 # I'm a little farther north than WV.

Any thoughts on why?
 
'Cause you shot all the bigger ones as they were much easier to hit, even at long range, therefore only smaller ones were left to breed. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Rule of Redfrog Selection
 
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