page_title: Japanese wolf
section_title: Range
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese wolf / Range
caption_attribution_description: English: Honshu wolf on Dejima
context_page_description: The Japanese wolf is an extinct subspecies of the gray wolf that was once endemic to the islands of Honshū, Shikoku and Kyūshū in the Japanese archipelago. It is also known as the Honshū wolf. Its binomial name derives from the Greek Hodos (path) and phylax (guardian), in reference to Japanese folklore, which portrayed wolves as the protectors of travellers. It was one of two subspecies that were once found in the Japanese archipelago, the other being the Hokkaido wolf.
context_section_description: The Japanese wolf inhabited Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu Islands but not Hokkaido Island. The remains of a 28,000-year-old wolf specimen from the Yana River on the northern coast of arctic Siberia matched the mDNA haplotype of the Japanese wolf, which indicates that they shared common ancestry and a wider distribution.
caption: Carl Hubert de Villeneuve's sketch of Siebold's captive specimen, probably the only authentic European depiction of the species unambiguously identified as a wolf rather than a "mountain dog"[5]
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