Egyptian wolf, October 2015

Lupaster wolves have since then also been seen in Senegal, Morocco and 2 other countries and in Kingdons new field guide to African mammals he also clearly distinguishes the two and hypothesizes that the wolves occur in the whole of northern Africa, except in the Sahara desert... Some information from Morocco also stated that the local Berber tribe already knew that there were two species of golden jackal, so it is all quite vague indeed at the moment. But I guess that with some patience the true story may be found....

Here's the new bit. Golden Jackals (C. aureus) in Eurasia are a different species from those in Africa (C anthus). in fact, they aren't even that closely related to one another. Those in Africa are actually a sister species to wolves, and are now called African Golden Wolves. This applies to that animals from all of Africa, not just the northern regions.

http://www.zoochat.com/65/there-new-wolf-species-419742/

jbnbsn99 said:

Here's the new bit. Golden Jackals (C. aureus) in Eurasia are a different species from those in Africa (C anthus). in fact, they aren't even that closely related to one another. Those in Africa are actually a sister species to wolves, and are now called African Golden Wolves. This applies to that animals from all of Africa, not just the northern regions.

http://www.zoochat.com/65/there-new-wolf-species-419742/

Click to expand...

So, under that model, is lupaster subsumed into C. anthus or does it remain as a subspecies of C. lupus?

Maguari said:

So, under that model, is lupaster subsumed into C. anthus or does it remain as a subspecies of C. lupus?

Click to expand...

Subsumed into C. anthus, assuming that the proposed taxon stands up to further analysis.

Correct. The Egyptian Wolf is Canis anthus lupaster.

Maguari said:

So, under that model, is lupaster subsumed into C. anthus or does it remain as a subspecies of C. lupus?

Click to expand...

It has been separated from C. lupus, and anthus has precedence over lupaster as the specific name. Apparently all the former golden jackal subspecies in Africa have just been transferred over (so there is a C. anthus lupaster amongst them).

It is interesting to note that referring to Canis anthus as a wolf, rather than a jackal, is not new.

The London Zoo species list, published 150 years ago in 1865, uses the name Abyssinian wolf for Canis anthus

I knew nothing of any of this, so I appreciate the information. I will say as an amateur carnivore lover that the animal in this photo looks much more like a wolf to me than a jackal.

Thanks all. That fills in the blanks I couldn't from the paper I read (not the paper's fault; it just assumed you knew what was in anthus from the start).

Canis really is the taxonomic puzzle that keeps on coming, isn't it?

Here is a really good article on the North African canid situation (with references also to Europe and Eastern USA).
A new mammal ID frontier – Western Palearctic Canids | Birding Frontiers