About six years ago, a wildlife biologist noticed a pack of mysterious creatures living on Galveston Island, a barrier island off the Gulf Coast of Texas. The creatures looked an awful lot like coyotes, but also red wolves, an ancient coyote-wolf hybrid that had been extinct in the wild for nearly 40 years.

Eventually, scientists collected DNA samples from the mystery creatures, tested and analyzed them. The results showed they were coyotes harboring genes from the red wolf. This meant that even though the red wolf disappeared from the area long ago--at least in dog years--its genes lived on through coyotes.

Our guest today is Elizbeth Heppenheimer, a Princeton biologist who studied the DNA samples from Galveston’s mystery canids. Her work was published late last year in the science journal Genes. Elizabeth and I spoke about the study, what it means for conservation of the red wolf and why canid species seem to have trouble keeping their genes to themselves.

Read the full study here: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/9/12/618

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Watch the video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wow4qgMRMsM

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