Dusicyon australis Kerr, 1792
Falkland Island wolf, Falklands wolf, Falkland Islands dog, Falkland Island wild dog, Falkland Islands fox, Antarctic wolf, Warrah
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Synonym/s: Duscicyon australis Kerr, 1792; Canis antarcticus
Conservation Status
Extinct
Last record: 1876 (Goodwin & Goodwin, 1973; Fisher & Blomberg, 2012)
IUCN RedList status: Extinct
The extinction of this species was predicted by Charles Darwin when he visited the Falkland Islands aboard the HMS Beagle in 1833 (Darwin, 1836).
Distribution
Falkland Islands, Argentina
Biology & Ecology
Hypodigm
There are currently 9 known skins (Jansen & van der Mije, 2015), including:
NNML 19111
NNML 19112
Media
References
Original scientific description:
Kerr, Robert. (1792). The Animal Kingdom: London: J. Murray & R. Faulder.
Other references:
Allen GM (1942) Extinct and vanishing mammals of the Western Hemisphere with the marine species of all the oceans. American Committee for International Wild Life Protection, Special Publication 11, 1–620.
Austin, Jeremy J. et al. (2013). The origins of the enigmatic Falkland Islands wolf. Nature Communications 4(1552): 7 pp. [Abstract]
Clark, T. J. et al. (2022). Comment on “Evidence of prehistoric human activity in the Falkland Islands”. Science Advances 8(17): eabo0928. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abo0928
Darwin, Charles Robert. (1838). The zoology of the voyage of H. M. S. Beagle, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, R. N., during the years 1832 to 1836. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
Day, David. (1981). The Doomsday Book of Animals: A Natural History of Vanished Species. New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press.
Dollmann, J. Guy. (1937). Mammals which have recently become extinct and those on the verge of extinction. J. Soc. Preserv. Fauna Empire n. s. 30: 67-74.
Fisher, Diana O. and Blomberg, Simon P. (2012). Inferring Extinction of Mammals from Sighting Records, Threats, and Biological Traits. Conservation Biology 26(1): 57-67. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2011.01797.x
Fisher, Diana O. and Humphreys, Aelys M. (2024). Evidence for modern extinction in plants and animals. Biological Conservation 298: 110772. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110772
Goodwin, Harry A. and Goodwin, J. M. (1973). List of mammals which have become extinct or are possibly extinct since 1600. Int. Union Conserv. Nat. Occas. Pap. 8: 1-20.
Hamley, Catherine "Kit" M. (2016). Humans and the Falkland Islands Warrah: Investigating the origins of an extinct endemic canid. Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2538. [Abstract]
Hamley, Catherine "Kit" M. et al. (2021). Evidence of prehistoric human activity in the Falkland Islands. Science Advances 7(44): eabh3803. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abh3803
IUCN SSC Canid Specialist Group. (2008). Dusicyon australis. In: IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.1. (http://www.iucnredlist.org). Downloaded on 29 October 2011.
Jansen, J. J. F. J. and van der Mije, S. D. (2015). Review of the mounted skins and skulls of the extinct Falkland Islands wolf, Dusicyon australis, held in museum collections. Archives of natural history 42(1): 91-100. [Abstract]
Jansen, J. J. F. J. and van der Mije, S. D. (2015). Corrigendum to J. J. F. J. Jansen and S. D. van der Mije, Review of the mounted skins and skulls of the extinct Falkland Islands wolf, Dusicyon australis, held in museum collections. Archives of Natural History 42 (1): 91-100. Archives of Natural History 42(2): 362.
Lee, T. E., Fisher, D. O., Blomberg, S. P. and Wintle, B. A. (2017). Extinct or still out there? Disentangling influences on extinction and rediscovery helps to clarify the fate of species on the edge. Global Change Biology 23(2): 621-634. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13421
Meloro, Carlo et al. (2017). Evolutionary ecomorphology of the Falkland Islands wolf Dusicyon australis. Mammal Review 47(2): 159-163.
Prevosti, F.J., Ramírez, M., Schiaffini, M., Martin, F., Udrizar Sauthier, Carrera, M., Sillero-Zubiri, C. and Pardiñas, U.F.J. (2015). Extinctions in near time: New radiocarbon dates indicate a very recent disappearance of the South American fox Dusicyon avus (Carnivora, Canidae). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 116(3): 704-720. https://doi.org/10.1111/bij.12625
Rawlence, Nicolas J., Crane, Rosi, Burns, Emma and Fleury, Kane. (2024). Mounted specimen of Falkland Islands wolf (Dusicyon australis) in Tūhura Otago Museum: X-ray imaging and additional historical information. Archives of Natural History 51(1): 177-182. https://doi.org/10.3366/anh.2024.0906
Renshaw, Graham. (1905). More Natural History Essays. London: Sherratt and Hughes.
Sillero-Zubiri, C. (2015). Dusicyon australis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015: e.T6923A82310440. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-4.RLTS.T6923A82310440.en. Accessed on 02 July 2022.
Sillero-Zubiri, C., Hoffmann, M. and Macdonald, D. W. (eds). (2004). Canids: Foxes, Wolves, Jackals and Dogs. Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.
Graham J. Slater, Olaf Thalmann, Jennifer A. Leonard, Rena M. Schweizer, Klaus-Peter Koepfli, John P. Pollinger, Nicolas J. Rawlence, Jeremy J. Austin, Alan Cooper and Robert K. Wayne. (2009). Evolutionary history of the Falklands wolf. Current Biology 19(20): 937-938.
Turvey, Samuel T. (2009). Holocene mammal extinctions, pp. 41-61. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford, UK & New York, USA: Oxford University Press. xii + 352 pp.
Turvey, Samuel T. and Fritz, Susanne A. (2011). The ghosts of mammals past: biological and geographical patterns of global mammalian extinction across the Holocene. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 366(1577): 2564-2576. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0020 [Supplementary Information]
http://observationdeck.io9.com/wednesday-woof-dusicyon-australis-extinct-edition-1570166623
https://extinctanimals.proboards.com/thread/7419/dusicyon-australis-falkland-islands-wolf
https://twilightbeasts.org/2021/11/11/foolish-dogs/