Yo. Mother Effers. Scientists Just Discovered A New Species Of Wolf. A New Wolf.

Smithsonian

Yo, check that bitch up there out. Look at him. He (or she!) is a fucking boss. Why? Because he’s a brand new wolf. The first fucking wolf discovered in 150 years.

Wolf, dawg.

Previously thought to be an African golden jackal, that thing is actually more closely related to the wolf.

Wolf. From Nat Geo:

Though golden jackals look mostly the same—the Eurasian animals are slightly smaller than the African ones, with a narrower skull and slightly weaker teeth—in-depth analysis of their DNA revealed two species that have evolved separately for millennia.

By examining 38 different genetic markers of 128 canid specimens—including golden jackals from Kenya, North Africa, and Eurasia; African gray wolves; and domestic dogs—[Klaus-Peter Koepfli, a biologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute] confirmed that African and Eurasian golden jackals are two separate species.

[Koepfli] discovered the African golden jackal is a new wolf species of its own, and that this species and the Eurasian golden jackal are distant cousins, having last shared an ancestor about a million years ago. The research appeared July 30 in the journal Current Biology.

New wolf, man. New fucking wolf.