In the end, it all pointed toward the same result: that the “jackal” was actually a relative of a North African wolf, and not as closely related to golden jackals living in Asia. The group embarked on a comprehensive genetic analysis, running a variety of tests on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA from a number of canids, including jackals, wolves and coyotes - “probably the most extensive analysis to designate species status that has ever been done,” Wayne said. But when another group of researchers recently studied mitochondrial DNA from an African golden jackal and found it seemed more closely related to a gray wolf than to a Eurasian golden jackal, it forced Wayne and a new set of colleagues to take another look.
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