Researchers extract gene of extinct Japanese wolf
Yomiuri Shimbun
A group of Tokyo University and other researchers have successfully extracted a gene from a stuffed Japanese wolf, a species considered extinct nearly a century ago, and conducted the first ever gene analysis on the extracted cell nucleus.
According to Hideaki Tojo, professor of agricultural and life sciences at the university’s graduate school, and Chikashi Tachi, research fellow at Mitsubishi Kagaku Institute of Life Sciences, the gene they recently extracted from a three-millimeter-long by three-millimeter-wide piece of skin from the preserved wolf is believed to be related to the composition of the proteins forming the enamel surface of the animal’s teeth.
The Japanese wolf, which was about one meter long, with relatively short limbs and ears, was once found all over Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu. However, the species is considered extinct as there has been no official record of its capture since a hunter in Nara Prefecture caught one in 1905.
Besides the specimen at the university’s agricultural department, which was purchased in Iwate Prefecture in 1881, there are only four other stuffed Japanese wolves. They are preserved at the Tokyo National Museum, Wakayama University, the British Museum and the National Museum of Natural History in Leiden, the Netherlands.
The researchers said the gene from the stuffed wolf would help them study the origin and ecology of this particular species compared with dogs and other kinds of wolves.
The world’s wolves are believed to be commonly descended from a species of wolf that lived in Mongolia. About 6 percent of the genes from the Japanese wolf were found to differ from that of the ancestral wolf species, according to the researchers.