Iberian Wolf
| Iberian wolf | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Canidae |
| Genus: | Canis |
| Species: | C. lupus |
| Subspecies: | C. l. signatus |
| Trinomial name | |
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Canis lupus signatus Cabrera, 1907 |
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The Iberian wolf (Canis lupus signatus) is a subspecies of grey wolf that inhabits the forest and plains of northern Portugal and northwestern Spain. The 2003 census estimated the total Iberian population to be 2,000 wolves.
The Iberian wolf is considered a synonym of Canis lupus lupus by Mammal Species of the World, although its skull morphometrics, mtDNA, and microsatellite differ from other European wolves.
In 2016, a study of mitochondrial DNA sequences of both modern and ancient wolves indicated that in Europe, the two most genetically distinct haplotypes form the Italian wolf and, separately, the Iberian wolf.
The taxonomic reference Mammal Species of the World (2005) does not recognize the subspecies Canis lupus signatus, however NCBI/Genbank does list it.
The Iberian wolf differs from the more common Eurasian wolf with its slighter frame, white marks on the upper lips, the dark marks on the tail and a pair of dark marks in its front legs that give it its subspecies name, signatus ("marked"). The subspecies differentiation may have developed at the end of the Ice Ages due to the isolation of the Iberian Peninsula when glacier barriers grew in the Pyrenees and eventually reached the Gulf of Biscay in the West and the Mediterranean in the East.
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Wikipedia