So what's a species anyway? New information on the Red Wolf.

Way back when I co-authored this article; 

Lex Anteinternet: Wolf Recovery Under the Endangered Species Act: A ...: From the Public Land Law Review: Wolf Recovery Under the Endangered Species Act:  A Study In Contemporary Federalism . An article I work...

I recall reading about Red Wolves.

The article is really on Gray Wolves, the same species people call Timber Wolves.  When researching it at the time I recall reading a fair amount of the literature of the species classification of wolves, and Gray Wolves were the big wolf group in North America, with there being in some people's minds a variety of subspecies of them. The local wolf was the Northern Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf, but that's really just a regular Gray Wolf. Some old literature maintained that there might have been a species they termed Buffalo Wolves, but the best evidence was that those wolves were just wolves that had grown large on buffalo carcasses, rather than some giant species of wolf that drug down buffalo, although some maintained the opposite.

Red Wolves, however, were thought by most to be a completely separate species.  Some, however, argued that they were just a coyote wolf hybrid.

Indeed, canines don't fit the classic species definition well, as it's pretty clear that they'll readily produce viable offspring, which according to Linnean classification rules means that they're all one species.  This seems ignored in regards to them, however, in no small part as various dogs have significantly different behaviors.  Coyotes, for example, don't hunt in ordered packs like wolves do.

Well, with DNA studies advancing to rapidly it was only a matter of time until a DNA study was done of Red Wolves. And it turns out they have no identifiable separate genetic information. They really are a coyote wolf hybrid.

They like each other better than coyotes, it turns out, so they keep on keeping on. But this is really pretty significant in terms of our understanding of species, let alone wolves. For one thing, it means that a person now has to either question whether Red Wolves deserve the endangered species characterization they now have, as they might not be a species at all, or perhaps it means we should reconsider the definition of a species.

Or perhaps it brings back the old argument about lumpers vs. splitters in species classification, which has always been with us. Are there lots of species in any one genus, or just a few?

I think just a few, quite frankly.