Editing Red wolf (section)

==== Fossil evidence ====
The [[paleontologist]] Ronald M. Nowak notes that the oldest fossil remains of the red wolf are 10,000&nbsp;years old and were found in Florida near [[Melbourne, Florida|Melbourne]], [[Brevard County, Florida|Brevard County]], Withlacoochee River, [[Citrus County, Florida|Citrus County]], and [[Devil's Den Cave]], [[Levy County, Florida|Levy County]]. He notes that there are only a few, but questionable, fossil remains of the gray wolf found in the southeastern states. He proposes that following the extinction of the [[dire wolf]], the coyote appears to have been displaced from the southeastern US by the red wolf until the last century, when the extirpation of wolves allowed the coyote to expand its range. He also proposes that the ancestor of all North American and Eurasian wolves was ''[[Canis variabilis#Canis mosbachensis|C.&nbsp;mosbachensis]]'', which lived in the [[Middle Pleistocene]] 700,000–300,000&nbsp;years ago.<ref name=nowak2002/>

''C.&nbsp;mosbachensis'' was a wolf that once lived across Eurasia before going extinct. It was smaller than most North American wolf populations and smaller than ''C.&nbsp;rufus'', and has been described as being similar in size to the small [[Indian wolf]], ''Canis lupus pallipes''. He further proposes that ''C.&nbsp;mosbachensis'' invaded North America where it became isolated by the later glaciation and there gave rise to ''C.&nbsp;rufus''. In Eurasia, ''C.&nbsp;mosbachensis'' evolved into ''C.&nbsp;lupus'', which later invaded North America.<ref name=nowak2003/>{{rp|242}}

The [[paleontologist]] and expert on the genus ''Canis''{{'}} natural history, [[Xiaoming Wang (paleontologist)|Xiaoming Wang]], looked at red wolf fossil material but could not state if it was, or was not, a separate species. He said that Nowak had put together more [[morphometric]] data on red wolves than anybody else, but Nowak's statistical analysis of the data revealed a red wolf that is difficult to deal with. Wang proposes that studies of [[ancient DNA]] taken from fossils might help settle the debate.<ref name=beeland2013/>