The Ongoing Canid Taxonomy Revision Canid News 2026 issue 2
New research with improved methods is challenging the conventional taxonomies in many mammalian groups, including the canids. The number of wolf species in North America is debated, and once considered as a single species, the Holarctic red fox seems to represent different evolutionary lineages in the Nearctic and Palearctic. Now accepted as a wolf species, the African wolf (Canis lupaster) was previously considered conspecific with the Eurasian golden jackal (Canis aureus).
As the species and subspecies are the units for the IUCN Red List assessment, the correct taxonomy is utmost important for best possible assessments and conservation actions. Accordingly, many specialist groups are taking measures to review the taxonomy of their group. In a recent article in Conservation Biology, Garnett et al. (2026) investigated the IUCN expert groups’ taxonomic decision making. Very few mammal groups considered their taxonomy settled. Many had a collective decision making but some had formed a dedicated committee to make the decisions.
The IUCN SSC Canid Specialist Group (CSG) is doing the latter. The work was initiated in 2023 in Edinburgh, when a taskforce was formed after a workshop facilitated by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS). We have now 14 dedicated members in the Canid Taxonomy Revision Taskforce assessing all the canid species and subspecies. Similar to many other mammal groups, we have adopted the ‘traffic light system’ (Kitchener et al. 2022) with canid specific modifications to evaluate validity of the proposed taxa. The traffic light system assesses three lines of evidence (genotype, phenotype, and biogeography) to support or refute proposed species and subspecies. Taxa without enough evidence are left open, and more research is requested.
We are aiming to finish the first version to be published online in early 2027 and then continue to update as our understanding of canid species increases in the future.
References
Garnett, S.T., Johnston, C.E., Bowles, P., Christidis, L., Conix, S., Duckworth, J.W., Lien A., Zachos, F.E. & Witteveen, J. 2026. Evaluating the use of taxonomy in the IUCN Red List. Conservation Biology. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.70306
Kitchener, A. C., Hoffmann, M., Yamaguchi, N., Breitenmoser-Würsten, C., & Wilting, A. (2022). A system for designating taxonomic certainty in mammals and other taxa. Mammalian Biology, 102(1), 251–261.