The US Endangered Species Act makes no mention of hybrids, so the red wolf might lose its protected status – and the millions of dollars spent on captive breeding and recovery programmes. The US government also recognises two others, the eastern wolf, now found in Ontario, and the red wolf, which has been bred in captivity from 12 individuals and reintroduced to the eastern US. Now Robert Wayne, a geneticist at the University of California at Los Angeles, and his colleagues have compared whole genome sequences of 28 wolf and coyote individuals from Eurasia and North America, including eastern and red wolves. They were looking for any mysterious genetic material that was not gray wolf or coyote, and could be uniquely considered red wolf or eastern wolf. The researchers analyzed the genomes of 12 pure gray wolves (from areas where there are no coyotes), three coyotes (from areas where there are no gray wolves), six eastern wolves (which the researchers call Great Lakes wolves) and three red wolves. Mix it up 
 
 The eastern and red wolves showed no evidence of independent ancestry; their genomes could be explained solely by admixture between coyotes and grey wolves.  Mark Conlin/Oxford Scientific/Getty 
 
 The red wolf, a critically endangered species living in the south-eastern US, may be nothing more than a hybrid between coyotes and the grey wolf, a new study suggests. (Wayne’s research team published findings in the journal Nature in 1991 suggesting red wolves were a mixture of gray wolves and coyotes.) Co-authors of the study include lead author Bridgett vonHoldt, an assistant professor at Princeton University and former UCLA graduate student and postdoctoral scholar who worked in Wayne’s laboratory; Beth Shapiro, UC Santa Cruz associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology; Jacqueline Robinson, a UCLA graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology in Wayne’s laboratory; and Zhenxin Fan, an assistant professor at China’s Sichuan University, who was a visiting graduate student in Wayne’s laboratory.
– The US government recognizes three wolf species in North America: the red wolf, eastern wolf, and gray wolf. Two, it turns out, aren't true wolf at all. In a new genetic study, scientists at UCLA say the gray wolf is the last wolf species on the continent and all others are simply hybrids. After studying the genomes of eastern wolves, red wolves, gray wolves, and coyotes, they found "no evidence for distinct eastern or red wolf species," study author Robert Wayne tells the Los Angeles Times. In fact, the red wolf found in the southern US has about 25% gray wolf and 75% coyote ancestry, while the eastern wolf of central Ontario has about 75% gray wolf and 25% coyote ancestry. Scientists say the two species began mixing hundreds of years ago in the American South and about a century ago in the Great Lakes area. Previous research has found genetic and morphological evidence that the red and eastern wolves are unique, so this study might not have the final word, reports the New Scientist. But it could have consequences: The gray wolf is protected under the Endangered Species Act based on a traditional geographic range including the Great Lakes region and 29 Eastern states. But in 2014, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed removing the animal's protections because it found the eastern wolf occupied that territory instead, making the gray wolf listing invalid. This study shows the gray wolf did live in the range and "should keep its endangered species status," Wayne says in a release. A decision could come this fall. The Endangered Species Act doesn't currently recognize hybrids, though Wayne says that should change. (The "golden wolf" was just discovered.)