Reading about dire wolves and other extinct beasts

 By now, news of the "de-extinction" of the dire wolf has thrilled -- or infuriated -- many of us. It's saying a lot for Colossal Biosciences, the Dallas based biotech company, to claim that the beasts resulting from genetic manipulations between an extinct animal and its closest living relatives is identical to the extinct one.

It's a great piece of self-promotion for Colossal, whose bruhaha overshadows the real triumph: also producing four living red wolves. They're a still-extant species whose declining population increasingly limits its genetic diversity and future viability. 

I don't predict a happy future for the maybe-dire wolves presented to the world in still-adorable puppyhood. Apparently, they're growing to look like larger, rather improbably white-furred versions of gray wolves, a species about as closely related to actual dire wolves as chimpanzees are to humans. 

Does physical resemblance predict they'll behave as either gray or dire wolves? Especially without any existing adults to model whatever version of culture those animals may have possessed?

We can only wait and see. And write, if we care to, with the aid of some science-based books about the long, long ago. 

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Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives & Evolutionary History, by Xiaoming Wang and Richard H. Tedford, with illustrations by Mauricio Antón

The cover illustration for this volume is actually of Borophagus secundus, one of the highly specialized, hyena-like "bone-crushing" dogs who once called the Americas home. Here's hoping no one ever tries to bring Borophagus back to life!

Wang and Tedford combined their work at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, whose sites include the La Brea Tar Pits that trapped many a dire wolf, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York in this easy-to-read story of the canine clan.

With the help of Antón's illustrations, Dogs explores such topics as the great diversity in the canine family, their hunting and social activity, and adaptations as well as extinctions during their near-total distribution around the globe.

The book also explores what is known about the domestication of that group of canines many of us call our best friends.

There's a lot to cover, given that when the book was released in 2008, there had been more than 214 known species of canids during the group's 40-million-year history, with more probably still to be discovered.

I admit skipping first through paleontological artist Antón's lavish illustrations, including eight full color plates. 

Given the time that has elapsed since the publication of Dogs, its illustrations do not depict what has become known since then about the coloration of the dire wolves who launched this discussion. They also do not depict a possible change of scientific name, from Canis dirus to Aenocyon dirus, reflecting the species' evolutionary distance from still living gray wolves. 

Antón's illustrations are so amazing, I've been searching for as many of his other books as I can find, including --

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The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives.

In this 1997 volume, subtitled An Illustrated Guide to Their Evolutions and Natural History, Antón's name precedes that of the text's author, anatomy professor Alan Turner. It has even more color plates than Dogs. 

The Big Cats also gives the illustrator greater scope for color and markings, given that he's illustrating both living and extinct species, with the greater divergence in coloring among members of the cat family.

Anyone grieving over whether dire wolves' fur really was white, versus red or any other color, can take solace in the depiction of a white Homotherium, a sabertoothed cat. Anton gives its illustration a whitish coat that may have been advantageous in its mammoth-steppe Alaska environment.

As he also did in Dogs, Antón's drawings often detail the steps involved in reconstructing animals from skeletal remains to full body.