Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Himalayan wolf
Summary
The Himalayan wolf (Canis lupus chanco) is a canine of debated taxonomy. It is distinguished by its genetic markers, with mitochondrial DNA indicating that it is genetically basal to the Holarctic grey wolf, genetically the same wolf as the Tibetan and Mongolian wolf, and has an association with the African wolf (Canis lupaster). No striking morphological differences are seen between the wolves from the Himalayas and those from Tibet. The Himalayan wolf lineage can be found living in Ladakh in the Himalayas, the Tibetan Plateau, and the mountains of Central Asia predominantly above in elevation because it has adapted to a low-oxygen environment, compared with other wolves that are found only at lower elevations.
Some authors have proposed the reclassification of this lineage as a separate species. In 2019, a workshop hosted by the IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group noted that the Himalayan wolf's distribution included the Himalayan range and the Tibetan Plateau. The group recommends that this wolf lineage be known as the "Himalayan wolf" and be classified as Canis lupus chanco until a genetic analysis of the holotypes is available. The Himalayan wolf lacks a proper morphological analysis. The wolves in India and Nepal are listed on CITES Appendix I as endangered due to international trade.
Canis chanco was the scientific name proposed by John Edward Gray in 1863, who described a skin of a wolf that was shot in Chinese Tartary. This specimen was classified as a wolf subspecies Canis lupus chanco by St. George Jackson Mivart in 1880. In the 19th and 20th centuries, several zoological specimens were described:
Canis niger by Philip Sclater in 1874 was a wolf specimen collected near Hanle in Kashmir.
Lupus filchneri by Paul Matschie in 1907 was a wolf skin from Xining in China's Qinghai province. It had been collected by Wilhelm Filchner during an expedition to China and Tibet in 1903–1905.
Lupus karanorensis by Matschie in 1907 was a skin and a skull of a wolf that was shot in an oasis near Dunhuang in China in 1894.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.