Although cherry wolves are critically endangered , their DNA may come through in other species . Researchers have discovered that a population of eyetooth dwell on Galveston Island , off the seashore of Texas , have unique red wolf gene that may have disappeared in the only cognise universe of these creature . The find is reported in the journalGenes .
The story of this specie is not a well-chosen story . savage red Wolf went extinct in the wilderness by 1980 and the only group that remains are the descendants of a captive breeding program . While they increase in numbers for several years , recently the population took a dive . Now , only 40 individual stay .
" While there have been report of ' red wolves ' along the Gulf Coast , formal science dismissed them as misidentified brush wolf , " leading source Elizabeth Heppenheimer , a graduate research worker at Princeton , said in astatement . " Now , we have shown that at least one example of a ' red wolf sighting ' has some validity to it , as these Galveston Island animals definitely channel genes that are present in the captive red wolf universe yet [ are ] absent from brush wolf and gray brute populations . "
The sample were gather by wildlife life scientist Ron Wooten from two road - killed animals . The research squad also evoke desoxyribonucleic acid samples from several different species of the AmericanCanisgenus : 29 coyotes from Alabama , Louisiana , Oklahoma , and Texas , 10 gray wildcat from Yellowstone , 10 eastern wolves from Ontario , and 11 red wolves from the breeding program .
The Galveston Island animals are much more similar to the jailed red wolves than any other species tested . The animals also hold a unique familial magnetic declination not found in any other cuspid species in North America .
" This variation may exemplify the red masher derived genes that were lost as a result of confined breeding , " said Heppenheimer . " It ’s incredibly rare to rediscover animate being in a region where they were thought to be extinct , and it ’s even more exciting to show that a piece of an endangered genome has been preserve in the wilderness . "
While these are early days and more research is necessary , it might be possible to re-introduce red wolves to the area in order for their lost gene to be expressed once again in the universe .
