“Dire Wolf” is an actual scientific name? And here I thought it was something made up by Game Of Thrones.
The scientific name is Canis dirus or "fearsome dog". Went extinct about 10,000 years ago. It was the size of a gray wolf but had a heavier build.
“And here I thought it was something made up by Game Of Thrones.”
Or the Grateful Dead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBua6awzByg
It's an actual *common* name used by scientists and science teachers in reference to an extinct species. Dire wolf and short-faced bear were top predators, and would have been daunting to any humans living here at that time. BTW, I know nothin' about Game of Thrones. :')
> ...an extinct carnivorous mammal of the genus Canis, roughly the size of the extant gray wolf, but with a heavier build. It evolved in the New World and was its most evolutionary derived species of Canis.[8] Canis dirus lived during the Rancholabrean land mammal age of North America (240,000–10,000 years BP) and was among the many large carnivores and megaherbivores that became extinct in North and South America near the end of the Pleistocene epoch. Its ending is associated with the Quaternary extinction event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dire_wolf
Not made up and quite nasty. About the same height as a gray wolf with about twice the mass according to femur size.
"Dire Wolf" was an ancient and now extinct much larger version of today's wolves.