The Sad Story of The Sicilian Wolf

 The Sicilian wolf (Canis lupus cristaldii) is yet another wolf species that humans have managed to kill off. It is an extinct sub-species of the gray wolf and it was reported as being endemic to Sicily. It was far paler than the mainland Italian wolf and comparable in size to the still living Arabian wolf and extinct Japanese wolf the latter was the subject of a previous post https://foxwildcatwolverineproject.blogspot.com/2023/05/hokkaido-and-enzo-wolves-reminder-that.html. 

The Sicilian wolf reportedly went extinct due to human persecution in the 1920s, but, as with the Hokkaido wolf and Thylacine there have been several alleged  sightings up to the 1970s. It was identified as a distinct sub-species in 2018 through morphological examinations of the few remaining mounted specimens and skulls, as well as mtDNA analyses.

As if the sight of a chained up wolf was not bad enough it has to be added that this is the only known photograph of the species.

Taxidermy is something a lot of people do not like and I have been criticised in the past for building an archive of fox specimens, however, taxidermy allows us to see what the animal in question looks like as well as size and without those specimens we might only be left with poor illustrations so as sad as it is to see stuffed specimens they are vitally important. Measurements taken from mounted museum specimens show that adults had a mean head to body length of 105.4 cm and a shoulder height of 54.6 cm which made them slightly smaller than the mainland Italian wolf, which measures 105.8-109.1 cm long and 65–66.9 cm high at the shoulder. This island wolf was a slender, short-legged sub-species with light, tawny coloured fur with the dark band present on the forelimbs of the mainland Italian wolf being absent or poorly defined.

   

Canis lupus cristaldii subsp. nov. Paratype n.3. Mounted specimen of an adult male, labeled 3. Museo Civico ‘Baldassarre Romano’, Termini Imerese (PA), Italy.

When it comes to how the Sicilian wolf likely entered Sicily it is thought likely that it crossed via a land bridge that formed 21,500-20,000 years ago. Just as the creation of the English/French Channel sank the old land bridge from Britain to Europe and separated the Old British foxes from the Old European ones so the wolf was separated from its mainland counter-part. In Britain the separation did not cause island dwarfism in the wolves but with the Sicilian wolf it did to an extent.

It is said that the decline in the wolf population likely began during the late Norman period, at this time its ungulate prey went extinct. This I would argue is far from believable as if the population went into decline but there had to have been sufficient prey sources for the species to survive from 1080 (Norman Conquest) into the 20th century. It seems far more likely that rather than a loss of prey it was human persecution of the wolves that saw them die out.

 Canis lupus cristaldii subsp. nov. Holotype. Mounted specimen of an old adult male, labeled M1891-Coll.652-1884. Museo di Storia Naturale, Sezione di Zoologia ‘La Specola’, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.

The species went extinct during the 20th century, however, despite this being during "modern times", the exact date is unknown though it is generally thought that the last wolf was killed in 1924 near Bellolampo. But there were reports of further kills between 1935 and 1938 and all in the vicinity of Palermo. It is noted that several sightings were also reported from 1960 and 1970. We see here an exact parallel with other canid extinctions and particularly that of the Old British fox; everyone knew the number of wolves was falling and that they were becoming rare but no one sought to protect the species -they were wolves after all.

In 2018, an examination of the holotype (a mounted specimen and its skull stored at the Museo di Storia Naturale di Firenze) and along with three others confirmed the morphological distinctiveness of the Sicilian wolf, and an examination of the mtDNA extracted from the teeth of several skulls showed that the subspecies possessed a unique haplotype, distinct from that of the Italian wolf.  Which is interesting but as the wolves had now ceased to exist it does not do the species much good but "it adds to our knowledge" and my response to that is "big deal" -scientific data is good but after the species is gone....

In 2019, an mDNA study (see reference) indicated that the Sicilian wolf and the Italian wolf were closely related and formed an "Italian clade" that was basal to all other modern wolves except for the Himalayan wolf and the now-extinct Japanese wolf. The study indicates that a genetic divergence occurred between the two lineages 13,400 years ago. This timing is compatible with the existence of the latest land bridge between Sicily and southwestern tip of Italy, which flooded at the end of the Late Pleistocene to form the Messina Strait.

Another study in 2019 also confirmed that this wolf was genetically related to Italian wolves, Late Pleistocene wolves, and one specimen possessed a "wolf-like" mtDNA haplotype not detected before

Sicillian wolf specimen kept in the Museum of Zoology "P. Doderlein", University of Palermo, Italy  Lo Brutto et al. (2023)

I have mentioned human persecution of the species and according to Angelo De Gubernatis (Zoological Mythology: Or, The Legends of Animals, Volume 2, Trübner & Company, 1872, pp. 146-147)  superstitions about wolves were common in nineteenth-century Sicily and it was believed by Sicilians that the head of a wolf increased the courage of those who wore it. In the province of Girgenti children were given and wore wolf skin shoes to ensure that they grew up as strong and combative adults. 

To get wolf heads and wolf skins meant that wolves had to be killed so far from being down to lack of ungulate prey the demise and extinction of the Sicilian wolf was down to human persecution.  A population can only survive so long and with male and females being killed for superstition or fashion then the population drops and is on the precipice of extinction. Nothing other than human persecution of wolves can be blamed for the extinction of the species because if the wolves were sighted and killed in the 1920s and 1930s it would have been known how rare they were-but they were still killed.

So many times we see canid species pushed to that precipice of extinction and then "just" about be brought back only to face the endless cycle of persecution and threat of extinction again. The United States (where one state officially released mange in the 1940s to kill off wolves, foxes and coyotes that were not being killed off fast enough) is of course the all-time champion in this and even now needs to transport wolves to repopulate areas where they were hunted to extinction and later -there is no doubt of this based on history- the wolf population will grow and "need to be harvested"  (we call it killed for a profit). 

And Europe is in the same situation with Norway trying to wipe out its wolves and EU politicians facing elections and being in the pockets of anti-wolf factions want to bring back wolf culling and their poster child for this is seemingly dictatorial President of the EU Ursula von der Leyens. Just how many more times do we have to see species facing extinction or becoming extinct before humans start doing something to stop it?

EXTINCTION IS FOREVER

Reale, S.; Randi, E.; Cumbo, V.; Sammarco, I.; Bonanno, F.; Spinnato, A.; Seminara, S. (2019). "Biodiversity lost: The phylogenetic relationships of a complete mitochondrial DNA genome sequenced from the extinct wolf population of Sicily". Mammalian Biology. 98: 1–10. doi:10.1016/j.mambio.2019.06.002.

A new subspecies of gray wolf, recently extinct, from Sicily, Italy (Carnivora, Canidae)Francesco Maria Angelici, Lorenzo Rossi  https://www.biorxiv.org/node/98040.full