The Sicilian Wolf: Genetic Identity of a Recently Extinct Insular Population
Historically, many local grey wolf (Canis lupus) populations have undergone substantial reductions
in size or become extinct. Among these, the wolf population once living in Sicily, the largest island
in the Mediterranean Sea, was completely eradicated by human activity in the early decades of the
20th century. To gain a better understanding of the genetic identity of the Sicilian wolf, we used
techniques for the study of ancient DNA to analyze the mitochondrial DNA of six specimens stored