The Dire Wolf co-existed with the Gray Wolf in North America for about 100,000 years. It was larger than the Gray Wolf, the largest living wild canid. It averaged 1.5 metres (5 feet) in length and weighed about 57-79 kilograms (125-175 pounds). They were one of the abundant Pleistocene megafauna—a wide variety of very large mammals that lived during the Pleistocene.


The first specimen of a Dire Wolf was found by Francis A. Linck at the mouth of Pigeon Creek along the Ohio River near Evansville, Indiana in 1854, but the vast majority of fossils recovered have been from the La Brea Tar Pits in California. Approximately 10,000 years ago, it became extinct along with most other North American megafauna.

The Dire Wolf is best known for its unusually high representation in the La Brea Tar Pits in California. In total, fossils from more than 3,600 individual Dire Wolves have been recovered from the tar pits, more than any other mammal species. This large number suggests that the Dire Wolf, like modern wolves and dogs, probably hunted in packs. It also gives some insight into the pressures placed on the species near the end of its existence. The first type specimen of the Dire Wolf was found in Evansville, Indiana in the summer of 1854, when the Ohio River was quite low. The specimen, a fossilized jawbone, was obtained by Dr. Joseph Granville Norwood from an Evansville collector named Francis A. Linck. It was sent to Joseph Leidy at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia who determined it represented an extinct species of wolf and published a note to that effect in November 1854. In a publication dated 1858, Leidy assigned the name Canis dirus.

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