A major objective of the wolf research project of WII was to address conservation genetic issues about the Indian wolf. Since exporting biological samples for analysis abroad was not possible it was considered best to develop an in-house expertise and capability to address this objective. As a part of the Wolf Project activity, I was trained in DNA based genetics techniques at the molecular genetics laboratory, National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.

A basic facility to conduct molecular genetics work was established at WII as a part of joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and Conservation of Indian wolf Project, of WII. Dr. Robert Fleischer, Head Genetics Laboratory at the Smithsonian Institution, visited WII in December 2000 and helped establish the lab. Since then, the lab is functional and we have successfully extracted DNA samples from hair, tissue, bone and blood samples of wolves (50), hyena (30), jackals (30) and dogs (20).

I present preliminary results of analysis of a microsatellite and control region of wolf, dog, hybrid, and jackals. Indian wolves were polymorphic for the allele screened, the speculated wolf dog hybrid was also polymorphic and shared one allele with wolves. The control region analysis of nine wolves shows that there are 2 haplotypes in Indian wolves, when compared with other wolves, dogs and jackals, the Indian wolves form a monophylatic clade separate from the other wolves and dogs with a high degree of divergence. This preliminary analysis suggests that our wolves separated from other wolves during the Pleistocene period. Though our results at this stage are preliminary, they suggest that the current Canis lupus pallipes should not be viewed as just another sub-species of the gray wolf but may indeed be very different genetically. We are in the process of scanning more wolf samples for different micro-satellite primers as well as control region and cytochrome b. We hope to have conclusive results within the next year.

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