![]() ![]() and many megalodon shark teeth, have inspired the couple to offer a popular fossil diving class in the Cooper River to hunt for prehistoric treasures. The Dillamans’ dire wolf find and other discoveries, including an Ice Age spear tip from 7,000 B.C. The Carnegie’s collection includes a re-creation of the extinct wolf. The extinct pack predator experienced a surge of popularity as they were very much alive in the HBO medieval fantasy series “Game of Thrones.”ĭire wolves, about 50% larger than modern-day wolves, lived 250,000 to 13,000 years ago, during the Ice Age, according to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Prehistoric treasures stud the riverbeds below alligators and other wild creatures in this ecologically rich area where the river meets ocean water and the tannins from decaying vegetation turn the water black.īut it is a favorite destination of Josh and Jennifer Dillaman of Freeport who, last year, found a relatively intact dire wolf jawbone, which is on display at their business, Scott’s Scuba Service in Freeport. This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 5, 2023.The Cooper River in South Carolina is not for the faint-hearted scuba diver. “We’re really just starting to figure out what the landscape looked like.” “Canadian fossils, especially from the time the after the dinosaurs, are relatively understudied,” Reynolds said. Much about Ice Age Canada remains to be learned, Reynolds said. At some point in its life, it lost one of its big teeth and had to make do. It was very old, so it must have been a successful wolf. There’s not much Reynolds can say about the dire wolf she studied. There’s some evidence, for example, that cave lions could have lived in the area. We see a fauna that is very similar to what we would see even in California.”īut this area would also have seen a unique mixing of southern and Arctic species. “We’re starting to get a better picture of what lived in Canada in ages past. Reynolds’ previous research found sabre-tooth cats in the same deposit as the dire wolf.Ĭonfirming the presence of dire wolves adds to our picture of what the Ice Age looked like in Canada, Reynolds said. ![]() There were giant ground sloths, wild horses, camels, mammoths and mastodons. That’s because in those days, most of what is now Canada, was covered by a massive ice sheet.īut every now and then the ice retreated, opening up habitat from Yukon down through central and southeast Alberta and making way for an Ice Age bestiary that’s hard to imagine on the rolling, grassy plains along the South Saskatchewan River where the dire wolf was found. ![]() This dire wolf is the northernmost confirmed example of the species ever found. “Based on the parts of the shape we do have, which does it look more like,” Reynolds said. They compared that with known values from grey and dire wolves. The team took points along the outline of the fossil and used a computer program to estimate its shape. “When an animal gets really old, it starts to wear down its teeth and this can mean that features of the teeth get worn away,” Reynolds said.Īlthough dire wolves tend to be significantly bigger than grey wolves, this individual was within the size range of both species. There are ways to tell them apart based on teeth, but this animal was too old for that. So, it was either a grey wolf or a dire wolf. ![]()
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