This is unrelated to anything else with the silly βDire Wolfβ controversy but them putting these images in all the articles give me the weirdest uncanny valley discomfort. Like it is hard for me to take these photos seriously. Do you know why?
Wolf pups just do not look like that. Because wolves typically have their pups in underground dens, it is an evolutionary advantage for the vulnerable pups to blend in with the dark earth of the den. If they were born white, theyβd be sharply contrasted and easier for predators to spot. Even arctic wolves are born dark and gain their typical white coat a little later (though not all arctic wolves are white either).
Fun fact in Game of Thrones they used domestic dogs to play the dire wolf pups; puppy Ghost is cute but heβs clearly no wolf!
Giving birth to pups that are darkly colored is a pretty basic adaptation in a lot of canids that litter underground. Red foxes and arctic foxes are also born a very nondescript shade of dirt. Exceptions exist, but this is just a thing that a lot of wild canines do. Here are various canids (red fox, Ethiopian wolf, maned wolf, and African wild dog) that do this
I donβt know if we have any proof that dire wolves had their pups in dens but it would be kind of weird if they didnβt. So even if the dire wolf had a light coat as an adult they would likely still be born with a darker color to act as camouflage.
So when I keep getting this image
blasted on all my feeds you can understand why my brain has trouble registering it even as a gray wolf pup. Itβs just weird. It looks like what chat gpt would spit out if you requested an arctic wolf pup. That thing would stand out like crazy in an underground den. You can make something look like something else all you want but the evolutionary history of a species is too complicated for us to ever faithfully recreate from scratch.