This is an Irish-marked melanistic coyote.
The melanism trait originated in domestic dogs and was transmitted to wolves and coyotes through crossbreeding.
The same goes with Irish markings.
I posted a photo of a normal gray coyote with Irish markings last year.
This is the first black one I’ve heard of.
Coyotes with dog colorations are not unheard of.
Dogs and coyotes can produce fertile offspring when they cross, and coyotes now live in a world where there are lots of dogs.
Now, coyotes apparently have very strict monogamy, even in urban settings.
And this is probably what keeps coyotes from becoming totally inundated with dog genes.
But there is enough of a gene flow between dogs and coyotes to introduce these novel colorations.
It’s possible that some of these colors are popping up as novel mutations in coyotes, but they seem to be found only in populations that are known to hybridize with domestic dogs or wolves. In populations where the coyotes are generally pure, their color doesn’t vary that much at all.
So it seems more likely that dog genes are the reason for all these strange coyotes.
Natural History 
Which suggests that either not all coyotes or monogamous, or that ‘cheating’ on a pair life bond with a dog doesn’t count.
More likely the dogs are dominating the male coyotes and mating with their females. A decent-sized dog can dominate a coyote, especially if there are several of them. If you read the comments on post on monogamous coyotes, this is what I mean.
Male dogs don’t typically desire mates in which they could help rear the offspring.
I think what’s happening is that sometimes bands of free-roaming or stray male domestic dogs hold off a coyote while mating with his female. The female coyote then becomes pregnant with dog hybrid and pure coyote pups from her mate and the male dog.
The pups then grow up as coyotes and breed into the coyote population.
Although there have been partnerships between dogs and coyotes, I’ve never heard of a male dog hooking up with a female coyote and helping her rear her offspring.
Coyotes probably are not able to reproduce without a male assisting the female, which is why monogamy is so strong in that species.
And although we do have cases of dog mtDNA in some coyotes– which I think bolsters the case that coyotes arrived in the East through at least some transplantation (people turned pet coydogs loose)– I don’t think you can get dog genes into a coyote population unless it’s a male dog mating with female coyote that is already pair-bonded with a male coyote who will help her rear any offspring she has.
Otherwise, the pups just aren’t going to survive.
This is also likely how wolf genes have gotten into the coyote population.
There is also the possibility that coyote bitches may have mated with a dog before she formed her pair bond later in the cycle.
But that seems a bit unlikely because about a month before coyote mating season, they really pair up.
I think this monogamy behavior is actually what keeps coyotes distinct as a species, even if there are occasional influxes of dog genes. If they bred the same way dogs do and readily considered dogs to be mates– in the same way wolves do–then there would be no coyotes in a very short time.
Well, once again this puts the lie to the “Urban Myth” school of thought in re Dog-Coyote hybrids. I recently ran across the following on a site entitled “Museum of Hoaxes”:
“Coydogs: Are they real creatures, or just the stuff of urban legend? As the name implies, a coydog would be a cross between a coyote and a dog. But according to Chrissie Henner, a biologist at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, they’re an urban legend. She says that “there has never been any physical evidence of a half-dog, half-coyote animal.” Not that it would be impossible for the two species to mate and produce an offspring, just very unlikely. Though Henner also points out that the mating cycles of the two species differ: “Coyotes go in to heat between January and March and have pups in May or June, while dogs have their pups in winter.”
Note: This sounds remarkably similar to claims we’ve seen here in the past few days.
Coincidentally, I subsequently ran across a photo of another coyote-border collie cross named Lanto at http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/coydog.htm.
In re the possibility of a massive influx of dog genes into coyote populations, I suspect that it would be mitigated by the fertility documented for crosses among F2 and F3 generations of coydogs/dogotes. In this vein, the following quote comes from the book “North American predators”:
“Breeding experiments in Germany with poodles and coyotes, as well as with wolves, jackals and later on with the resulting dog-coyote hybrids showed a decrease in fertility and significant communication problems as well as an increase in genetic diseases after three generations of interbreeding between the hybrids.”
Please note that these same fertility problems have NOT been noted w/ dog-wolf crosses. This is a very significant finding in light of these same earlier claims.
It also occurs to me that, by introducing western dogs into N. America we’ve guaranteed the transfer of Old World canid genes into New World canid populations. If there were to be no further out-crossing to dogs, I suspect that these genes would eventually become a relic in the native canid genomes much like the Neanderthal genes found in modern day Homo sap.
I’ve been looking for the original source of the coydog and jackaldog infertility problems.
Darwin is the one who described wolf and dog crosses as having infertility, but they were all inbred from the initial cross.
So I wonder if inbreeding has something to do with it.
I’ve come across a few papers on beagle-coyotes, but they all inbreed from the initial cross. The beagle parent is always inbred laboratory stock, and often the captive coyote stock is inbred, too, either from AI or they simply separate related pups from each other so when they meet as adults they don’t recognize each other as kin.
I bred wolf-dogs for 15 generations with no fertility problems. I used both judicial inbreeding and selective outcrossing to create my line of wolf-dogs, all descended from a remarkable 3/4 German shepherd, 1/4 Siberian husky I got for my 15th birthday. As far as I could tell there are no fertility problems when crossing dogs and wolves (and wolf-dogs) generation after generation.
Here’s another interesting piece I recently ran across:
The Behavioural Biology of Dogs, edited by Per Jensen, IFM Biology, Linköping University, Sweden
URL: dog behaviour.pdf
“…the simulations showed that the number of wolves involved in the domestication process was larger than deduced from mtDNA alone and probably involved several hundred wolves. Second, since it seems improbable that such a large founding population could have been kept separated from wild wolves, hybridization between wolves and dogs was probably an important influence on the diversity of the dog MHC. Presumably, extensive backcrossing with male wolves early in the history of dog domestication may have enriched nuclear diversity to a greater extent than maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA. Future research utilizing male-specific markers on the Y chromosome may help clarify the situation.”
I too have been looking for the original research. But what little I have found seems to indicate that the initial breeding population was large enough to preclude inbreeding as the cause. But if it wasn’t then the whole study is flawed and worthless. I’ll keep looking though as this is obviously something of great import and interest to all of us who subscribe to your blog.
Scottie; it looks likely that the original study (or at least one of the original studies) from which this data derive is: Doris Feddersen-Petersen, Hundepsychologic, 4. Auflage, 2004, Franck-Kosmos-Verlag 2004
It’s actually a book, and it’s probably quoting a study.
And this study can probably be more readily obtained.
Which just makes me even more curious!!!!!!!!!!!
Here’s the study I’m most familiar with: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21573986
A relatively inbred male coyote was bred to a beagle bitch, and then the offing were bred together and then their descendants were bred together. Then they bred F1’s and F2’s and took the progeny and bred them back to beagle. There is no mention of any infertility. I’ve also come across a claim in Marion Schwartz’s A History of Dogs in the Early Americas, that a certain percentage of coydogs are infertile. Her source, if my memory serves, was private communication with a researcher.
Dogs and coyotes clearly are different species, but the difference isn’t a sharp edge. It’s very fuzzy.
Humans living today have no idea what it’s like to be around another animal within the same genus with which we can produce fertile offspring– any proposed “humanzees,” would likely be Haldane’s Rule limited hybrids. And no one in their right mind would try to produce them.
That last is true Scottie, but we both know that there are plenty of nut-jobs out there and a number of rumors out of the old USSR.
Another possibly related source is: Wayne, R.K. and Brown, D.M. 2001. Hybridization and conservation of carnivores. Pp. 145–162 in J.L. Gittleman, S. Funk, D.W. Macdonald and R.K. Wayne, eds. Carnivore conservation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
BTW: I found the following while looking for the source studies:
Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan : Canids: Foxes, Wolves, Jackals and Dogs, edited by Claudio Sillero-Zubiri, Michael Hoffmann and David W. Macdonald, IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group
URL: http://www.carnivoreconservation.org/files/actionplans/canids.pdf
Coyotes : Similar species
“Coyotes can be confused with grey wolves (C. lupus), red wolves (C. rufus), and domestic dogs. Coyotes usually can be differentiated from these congenerics using serologic parameters, dental characteristics, cranial measurements, neuroanatomical features, diameter of the nose pad, diameter of the hindfoot pad, ear length, track size, stride length, pelage, behaviour, and genetics (Bekoff 1982; Bekoff and Gese 2003; and references therein). Coyotes may be differentiated from domestic dogs using the ratio of palatal width (distance between the inner margins of the alveoli of the upper first molars) to the length of the upper molar tooth row (from the anterior margin of the alveolus of the first premolar to the posterior margin of the last molar alveolus) (Howard 1949; Bekoff 1982; and references therein). If the tooth row is 3.1 times the palatal width, then the specimen is a coyote; if the ratio is less than 2.7, the specimen is a dog (this method is about 95% reliable) (Bekoff 1982). Unfortunately, fertile hybrids are known between coyotes and dogs, red and grey wolves, and golden jackals (Young and Jackson 1951; Bekoff and Gese 2003; and references therein).”
“Lanto” is liver/brown as the color of the nose shows ,So if he is coyote cross the coyote parent probably had some dog genes.
There are some cases of coyotes “cheating.” It’s just uncommon:
Click to access Hennessy%20et%20al.%20-%20JM%2093(3),%20732-742.pdf
That’s the urban coyotes are 100 percent monogamous paper.
Wolves are not necessarily monogamous, as I’ve shown here several times. I’ve got a draft on all of this, but I think the lone-ranger or Casanova strategy of wolf reproduction– the fact that they will breed this way– is the reason why this species and not others in Canis were domesticated. It was just easier to selectively breed from animals that do not have as strong a tendency toward monogamy. From what I’ve found on jackals, they are as monogamous as coyotes are.
Monogamy in this way may be the primitive way of reproduction for Canis. Coyotes and golden jackals are older species than wolves. And the two endemic African jackals are the oldest extant species of Canis.
There are cases of dogs doing forcible penetrations. I think that also may be what’s happening here.
I know that Elizabeth Marshall Thomas was attacked for writing about “dog rape.” She shouldn’t have used that term, because that’s really what set everyone off.
But in her pack of primitive dogs, there was social suppression of estrus. The female huskies were the ones to have the puppies. The female dingo pup was not.
If male dog came near her, she sat down.
One day, springer spaniel caught her by surprise, and Thomas describes the dingo screaming in terror as he mated with her.
I could see this happening if a band of male dogs came in on a coyote pair. One male could drive off her mate, while the others would trick her into standing up just long enough for one to mate with her.
Interesting markings. Though I don’t see a lot of evidence of dog genes in the coloration of the large coyotes we have here in Vermont, I find about half of the coyotes I check (road kills and ones shot by hunters) have rear dewclaws, a sure indication of domestic dog ancestry.
The newest release today covered by Science Daily on Coyote caught in suburbs of Chicago. This article covers the topic of Coyote setting the stage for larger pedators. Quite interesting.
Addressing the subject of a coyote mother being able to successfully raise a litter without a mate; it must be accepted that a coyote trying to raise a litter without the help of a mate would be severely handicapped in a natural environment, but there are always exceptions. And only one or two successful coydog litters with males growing to sexual maturity in an area would provide all the limited dog genetic material we seem to find in coyote populations.
For example, in the case of the coyote becoming “friends” (possibly mates) with a dog that I mentioned earlier. The farmer who owned the dog told me the coyote came onto his back porch every night (as far as he could tell) and ate from the dog’s dish of kibble and table scraps, which were kept outside on the porch since the dog was an “outside farm dog”. A coyote living under these conditions could easily raise a litter unassisted by a mate.
The farmer also told me this coyote dug a den in a hedgerow on a hillside where one of his pastures sloped down to a swamp, and had a litter of pups (presumably by the dog), but all were shot and killed the following fall during deer (hunting) season when hunters swarmed across his land (“swarmed” being my term, not his). But the same scenario in an urban setting would result in a growing litter of coydogs raiding dumpsters and eating cats more or less free of hunting pressures.
Hi David, the issue of fertility is not with dog-wolf crosses, a circumstance which bolsters the wolf origin for dogs, but with dog (or wolf)-coyote and dog (or wolf)-jackal crosses. There is apparently enough genetic distance among eh 3 species to cause problems if the F2’s and F3’s don’t mate w/ more or less pure examples of the parent species.
Sorry, that last was supposed to be in response to your earlier post that started “I bred wolf-dogs for 15 generations with no fertility problems.” Once again I posted in the wrong place.
That is strange since rear dewclaws are rare in dogs.
As far as a species/behavior barrier between dogs and coyotes goes in preventing dog/coyote hybrids, I know of one case here in Vermont where a young coyote became friends with a farm dog and seemed to consider this dog its friend, and possibly mate. This may be a simple (and common?) way for domestic dog genes to find their way into a wild canid population. No conflict with established mates, just a lonely coyote pup looking for a friend.
I assume that because of heavy hunting pressure coyote pairs and family groups (they form packs here in New England on a regular basis, no doubt a result of the wolf genes in their make-up) are routinely broken up, leaving unmated coyotes and orphaned young ones looking for companionship. I know from experience that dogs and wolves show no natural animosity towards each other. I own both Irish wolfhounds, Alaskan malamutes and wolf-dogs (including one 3/4 wolf that could pass as pure) and they all consider themselves one big happy family. I assume any Irish wolfhound, or other coursing breed that would run down and kill a wolf or coyote would also do the same to a strange collie.
And as far as the failure of a litter of half-coyote pups to survive because the dog father would not help raise them as a male coyote would; in my area a female coyote would have no trouble raising a litter without the help of a mate because farmers are always dragging dead cows and calves out to the dumps they all keep at the edges of fields. So the “single mother” would have a steady supply of carrion to feed on. As a matter of fact, one winter I visited several of these sights where dead cattle lay about to see what was feeding on them, and though I’d found a kill-sight not far from one of the carcass dumps where a group (pack) of coyotes had killed, and completely consumed a deer, leaving little but the skull and hide, none of the cattle carcasses had even been touched, indicating plenty of natural food available.
Male dogs can breed year around, and a female coyote will always have her pups in the spring. So any male dog/female coyote cross pups would be born at the right time to survive, and the male pups from these litters would have no trouble with continuing the dog/coyote line by breeding back to pure (or as pure as we have here) coyotes, even if their sisters produced litters at the wrong time of year.
Being well-versed in wolf-dog phenotypes, having bred wolf-dogs since 1974, I have little trouble recognizing domestic dog ancestry in wild canids, yet of the many coyotes (hundreds?) I have seen here in Vermont, only two have shown defiant dog genes (from a distance). Only upon close inspection of a coyote carcass, or in one case a photograph from a friends stealth camera do I note the rear dewclaws that indicate domestic dog genes, and in every case none of these animals showed any other physical characteristics that would indicate dog in them. On the other hand, they all showed a degree of wolf ancestry, being far different animals than the western coyotes I saw in New Mexico and Arizona in the 70s.
The coydog in this photo reminds me very much of my Bob. His mother was a feral blue merle smooth collie (almost certainly a smooth collie mix, not a purebred; rough collies and border collies are common here but smooth collies are nearly unheard of) who ran with a male coyote & had several litters over about 7 or 8 years. I never got close enough to her to get my hands on her but I was able to catch one of the puppies. Bob was one of the smartest dogs I have ever had or known. The animal here looks so much like Bob, except for the color; Bob was a brightly colored blue merle with the classic collie-type Irish markings. Bob was actually sexually precocious, at least, in his behavior; I don’t know whether he would have been fertile, but he was humping everything in reach by the time he was four months old so we neutered him early. He was brilliantly, almost uncannily intelligent. But I always had to watch him carefully around kids. He never bit or tried to bite a child, but he watched them in a very predatory way and I just did not trust him alone with them. But oh how I loved that dog.
This was before the days of digital photography but I have some old photos of Bob around somewhere. When I run across them I’ll post one. His resemblance to this coygog is striking: same slender, coyote-like bulid, same facial structure & large erect ears, same kind of coat.
*coydog not coygog
I saw the the coydog with the most recognizable dog characteristic I’ve ever seen back in the mid 70s. I was driving down a country road with alfalfa fields on both sides when a rather long-haired, golden dog trotted causally into the road about 100 yards ahead of me. Slowing as I approached the animal, I did a quick assessment of its physical characteristics (guessing the parentage of mixed breed dogs I see is a hobby of mine). There seemed nothing odd about it, except it had very large upright ears that flopped forward and up and down when it moved, and a very pointed snout.
As I closed the distance between us I went back to glancing to my right and left (as I usually do when driving, looking for something “interesting”), but then realized the dog had stopped in the middle of the road. I focused my attention on it as I approached the last few yards, and it turned its face towards me as I stopped. It was then I realized it had a very coyote-like face, and light golden eyes, and its tail was a fox-like brush rather than the normal dog-like sabre tail.
As I sat in my truck and watched it, it moved off the road and began hunting grasshoppers in the field, leaping about in the hunting pounce coyotes and fox use to catch mice, apparently not bothered by my presence at all.
I later noted that the farm nearest to where I saw this coydog had a male dog that appeared to be a (golden?) retriever-shepherd cross and was the same golden color as the animal I’d seen.
Though I looked for this animal the rest of the summer, traveling the roads surrounding the fields where I’d first seen it over and over, I never saw it again. That fall I heard that a hunter had shot it during deer season.
Thinking back to all the coyotes I’ve seen over the years, I just opened my copy of L. David Mech’s ‘THE WOLF’ and read the inscription I had jotted on the inside of the back cover after seeing my first (live) Vermont coyote. Everybody called them “Coy-dogs” back then. Here is what I wrote.
“April 28, 1975. I saw my first Vt. coy-dog tonight; which in my opinion really should be called a “Coy-wolf”. My first thought when I saw it was “Fox”, but on approaching it closer (being in a car) I realized it was a coyote (?).”
So even back then, having just returned from the southwest where I’d taken a keen interest in the coyotes found there (which all look much the same), I recognized the wolf ancestry in the first coyote I saw in Vermont.
When I was a kid in Chicago, one of the neighbors had a mid-sized (about 50lbs) yellow dog that he swore was a coy-dog. It certainly had some of the look–long rough coat, bushy tail, large upright ears–though it was boxier than any coyote–more like a Dingo. It also never barked, but man could it howl! Don’t know if it was all BS, but it was most certainly a possibility.
Are there any breeders deliberately raising coydogs, ie., to F2 and beyond? If so, what dog breeds are favored?
The rumor mill seems to suggest that coydogs may pass for dog-dogs. Might the hybrids be good as domestic dogs / pets? (Asking, in part, for a friend who is about to get a dog or a couple dogs and has a thing about coyotes . . . he’d favor a dog with some guarding tendencies, but reliable with friends/kids).
There was someone breeding coydogs using Siberian huskies, but they were breeding back to dogs.
The Sulimov dog (golden jackal hybrid) has also been bred back to dogs from the initial jackal cross.
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