Dire Wolf skulls at the Labrea Tar Pits in LA.
The dire wolf (Canis dirus) is an extinct carnivorous mammal of the genus Canis related to the smaller extant gray wolf. It was most common in North America and South America from the Irvingtonian stage to the Rancholabrean stage of the Pleistocene epoch, living 1.80 Ma—10,000 years ago, persisting for approximately 1.7 million years.
