Coywolf

Coywolf (sometimes called woyote) is an informal term for a canid hybrid descended from coyotes and one of three other North American Canis species, the gray, eastern and red wolf. Coyotes are closely related to eastern and red wolves, having diverged 150,000–300,000 years ago and evolved side by side in North America, thus facilitating hybridization. In contrast, hybrids between coyotes and gray wolves, which are Eurasian in origin and diverged from coyotes 1–2 million years ago, are extremely rare. Such hybridization in the wild has only been confirmed in isolated gray wolf populations in the southern USA, while several specimens were produced in captivity via artificial insemination from sperm extracted from northwestern gray wolves introduced to female western coyotes. Although it has evolved via hybridization, it has been proposed that the northeastern coywolf be given individual species status, as it is morphologically and genetically different from other North American Canis species and has now largely replaced the former territory and filled the historical predator-prey roles of the now nearly extirpated eastern wolf.