The discreet, charismatic denizen of scrubland and grasslands, the Indian wolf ( Canis lupus pallipes ), whose population has dwindled to just around 3,000 individuals in India and Pakistan, is likely to be classified as a new species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which would take the number of wolf species in the world to eight.

The Indian wolf was first placed within the umbrella genus of the grey wolf that roamed swathes of Asia. But the Indian wolf has the oldest living lineage of any wolf in the world, as genome and DNA sequencing has shown.

The canine has also been listed as “vulnerable”, bringing it much-needed attention and incentive to protect the much-maligned animal and conserve its rapidly shrinking habitat, which has been condemned as “waste

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