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The Dire Wolf That Wasn't a Wolf

Anyone who has watched Game of Thrones will remember the enormous wolf-like animals raised by members of House Stark. These creatures, known as “direwolves” in the story, were inspired by a real prehistoric animal: the dire wolf.


Ecological reconstruction of the habitat where dire wolves lived, with the dire wolf shown in the lower left（圖片來源：National Park Service，CC0 1.0 公共領域。）
Ecological reconstruction of the habitat where dire wolves lived, with the dire wolf shown in the lower left（圖片來源：National Park Service，CC0 1.0 公共領域。）

Like the fictional ice wolves, dire wolves were noticeably larger than the modern grey wolf. Yet apart from their size, their overall body form was strikingly similar to that of grey wolves. Because of this resemblance, many researchers long assumed that dire wolves were closely related to grey wolves—perhaps even a sister species or a subspecies within the grey wolf lineage.

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