Dusicyon australis

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Kingdom Animalia

Illustration by John Gerrard Keulemans (1842-1912). This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the European Union, Canada, the United States and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years.

Phylum Chordata 
Class Mammalia 
Order Carnivora
Family Canidae
Genus Dusicyon
Species Dusicyon australis  
Authority (Kerr, 1792)
 
English Name Falkland Islands Wolf, Falklands Wolf, Falkland Dog, Warrah, Antartic Wolf, Falkland Fox
Dutch Name Falklandwolf, Falkland Hond, Warrah, Antarctische Wolf
French Name Loup des Falkland, Loup des Iles Falklands
German Name Falklandfuchs, Falklandwolf
Hungarian Name Falklandi pamparóka
Portuguese Name Raposa das Malvinas, Raposa de Falkland, Raposa da Ilha de Falkland, Lobo da Ilha de Falkland, Lobo das Malvinas
Spanish Name Zorro de las Malvinas, Zorro Malvinero, Zorro-lobo de las Malvinas, Zorro-lobo Malvinero
 
Comments Its current scientific name is Dusicyon australis, meaning foolish dog of the south, alluding to its lack of fear of man.
 
Characteristics The Falkland Islands Wolf is larger than any others of the South American canids. It stood up about 60 cm (24 inches) high at the shoulders, and had a brownish-grey fur with black ears and a paler under body. This species shows also a distinct white tail-tip. This is sometimes regarded, as a sign of domestication, and some skull characters too, seems to point in this direction. It was said that this species did bark just like a domestic dog. 

Falkland Islands wolves on West Falkland were smaller, redder and darker, with finer fur. In 1844 Bartholomew Sulivan, second lieutenant on Beagle voyage, wrote to Darwin: “It is quite incorrect what we were told respecting the difference in the Foxes of the two Islands. They are the same both in size and colour. We have never been able to detect any difference.” Oldfield Thomas measured skulls of the East and West Falkland animals and reached opposite conclusion though said “no certainty is possible”, called them Dusicyon darwini of East Falkland and Dusicyon australis of West Falkland. Nowadays these two different Falkland Inlands wolves are sometimes seen as subspecies. Dusicyon australis australis (Kerr, 1792), and Dusicyon australis darwinii (Thomas, 1914).
 
Range & Habitat This species lived on the barren Falkland Islands, nearly 500 km from the South American mainland. It was the only land mammal of these islands.  Sometimes two subspecies are named: Dusicyon australis australis (Kerr, 1792), and Dusicyon australis darwinii (Thomas, 1914). D. a. australis lived on West Falkland, and D. a. darwini lived on East Falkland.
 
Food This species most likely survived on a diet of seabirds, seal pups, and probably even on vegetation. It was the only predatory mammal on the Falklands Islands.
 
Reproduction Nothing is known about the Falkland Islands Wolf’s reproductive or social behaviour.
 
History & Population It seems impossible that any dog species could have reached these remote islands on its own and survived the harsh conditions of the Ice Ages, whereas its nearest relative on the mainland would have become extinct. Therefore, it has been suggested that the Falkland Islands Wolf is a result of early domestication, either of a South American species that became extinct, or as the product of an early hybridisation between a form of domestic dog and an as yet unknown South American canid. Prehistoric man brought the dogs to the Falkland Islands during the early Holocene. Here these dogs stayed behind after the first inhabitants of the islands either died out or departed. They sheltered in burrows that they dug themselves.

Captain Strong and the crew of the Welfare first discovered the Falkland Islands Wolf in 1692. He captured one and kept it for several months as the ship's dog until the animal, started by firing of the ship's guns, jumped overboard. In 1765 Commodore Byron claimed the Falkland Islands for Great Britain. His account shows that in those days the Falkland Islands Wolf was rather numerous. Byron was the first to bring a skin of this species to Europe. Kerr described the Falkland Islands Wolf officially in 1792.

Despite heavy persecution by Argentinean settlers in the first decades of the 19th century, the Falkland Islands Wolf was still common in 1833, when Charles Darwin visited the islands during his voyage aboard his ship the Beagle. Darwin commented on the tameness of the animals and feared that this might eventually lead to their extinction. He was right! Shortly after the Falkland Islands Wolf was discovered by fur traders from the United States. Trappers holding a piece of meat in one hand and a knife in the other lured the extremely tame animals. By 1840 the species was already extinct in East Falkland.

The final blow came when Scottish settlers started sheep farming on the islands. As they saw it, the Falkland Islands Wolf was becoming a horrifying predator capable of destroying their herds. They set fire to the brushwood, laid poisoned baits and even went so far as to accuse the animal of being a vampire in order to justify its eradication. Once again, a predator paid a high price for man's stupidity. The last Falkland Islands Wolf has believed to be killed in 1876 at Shallow Bay, in the Hill Cove Canyon, West Falkland.
 
Extinction Causes U.S. fur traders hunted the species, and sheep raising Scottish settlers poisoned the Falkland Islands Wolf as a pest species.
 
Conservation Attempts A Falkland Islands Wolf lived in the London Zoo in the United Kingdom in 1868. In December 1870 the zoo got another "Antarctic Wolf", the surviving half of a pair sent by Mr Byng, the acting colonial secretary of the Falklands. This animal live only a few years. No conservation measures were taken.
 
Museum Specimens Only 11 museum specimens remain today in London (UK), Stockholm (Sweden), Brussels (Belgium), and Leiden (the Netherlands). The drawing above shows a stuffed specimen, which is one of the three specimens from the National Museum of Natural History in Leiden, the Netherlands.

Image: drawing is of the Falkland Islands Wolf specimen in the National Museum of Natural History Naturalis, in Leiden, the Netherlands. Created by Peter Maas for The Extinction Website. This image has been released under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 3.0 Licence.
 
Relatives The Falkland Island Wolf is probably the most enigmatic member of the dog family. The Falkland Islands Wolf no doubt belongs with the other South American canids, but it nearest relative has not been identified with certainty and may be extinct.

In 1880, zoologist Thomas Huxley concluded from skull comparisons that it was related to coyote. Later studies indicated it was closer to a fox rather than a wolf. In 1914, Oldfield Thomas moved it into the genus Dusicyon, with the culpeo (Dusicyon culpaeus is nowadays seen as a synonym of Pseudalopex culpaeus) and South American foxes. Its exact taxonomy is still debated. DNA studies of remains are inconclusive. 
 
Links

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Dusicyon australis

Natuurinformatie - The Warrah or Falklands "wolf" (Dusicyon australis) (also in Dutch & French)

Rare and Extinct Creatures

Warrah

Zorro-lobo (Spanish)

zorro malvinero (Spanish)

Museumkennis - Falkland wolf (Dutch)

kihalt gerinces fajok - Falklandi pamparóka (Hungarian)
 
Books Flannery, T., Schouten, P., 2001, A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals, William Heinemann, London. ISBN: 0434008192 (UK edition). 

Day, D., 1981, The Doomsday Book of Animals, Ebury Press, London. ISBN 0 85223 183 0.

Last updated: 21st September 2005.

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