Indian Wolf

Indian wolf
Indian wolf at Mayureshwar Wildlife Sanctuary in Pune, India.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Canidae
Genus:	Canis
Species:	Canis lupus
Subspecies:	C. l. pallipes
Trinomial name
Canis lupus pallipes Sykes, 1831
Canis lupus pallipes distribution

The Indian wolf (Canis lupus pallipes) is a subspecies of grey wolf that ranges from Israel to the Indian Subcontinent. It is intermediate in size between the Tibetan and Arabian wolf, and lacks the former's luxuriant winter coat. Two closely related haplotypes within this subspecies have been found basal to all other extant Canis lupus haplotypes apart from the older-lineage Himalayan wolf, and have been proposed as a separate species.

The Indian wolf was first described in 1831 by the British ornithologist William Henry Sykes under the binomial Canis pallipes. In 1941, Reginald Pocock subordinated it to Canis lupus under the trinomial Canis lupus pallipes.

The so-called "Indian gray wolf" (Canis lupus pallipes, synonym Canis indica) is formed by 2 closely related haplotypes that fall within the Indian wolf (Canis lupus pallipes) subspecies of the gray wolf (Canis lupus), reflecting the tendency to lump older subspecies and to name fewer new ones. It is only found in the arid and semi-arid peninsular plains of India. In April 2009, the Latin binom Canis indica had been proposed for these 2 haplotypes as a nomenclatural and taxonomic split from Canis lupus as a new species through the Nomenclature Specialist on the CITES Animals Committee. The committee recommended against this proposal but recommended that the name be entered into the species database as a synonym of the name under which it was listed. The proposal was based on one study that relied on only a limited number of museum and zoo samples that may not have be representative of the wild population, and a call for further fieldwork was made.

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