Thread: Wolf or Hyena?
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Old 02-14-2003, 11:07 AM   #9
Rynoah, the Overly-Happy
Shade of Carn Dûm
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Arizona
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Sting

I was a bit disappointed by the Wargs as well, considering how I envisioned them in the books. They were beautifully powerful, though, even if they weren't pleasing to the eye, and I'd love to keep one in the corral out back for... neighborhood dog extermination purposes.<P>Dire wolves are mentioned here. An article <A HREF="http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/direwolf.html" TARGET=_blank>here</A> doesn't shed much light on the subject, but they have a picture that is supposedly "proportioned according to precisely measured skeletal remains." As you can see, it doesn't resemble the hyena much.<P>For comparison, you can find a picture of a dire wolf skull <A HREF="http://www.naturalworlds.org/wolf/history/Canis_dirus.htm" TARGET=_blank>here</A> and a spotted hyena skull <A HREF="http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/media/anat/family_pages/carnivora/hyaenidae.jpg" TARGET=_blank>here</A>, though it's hard to get a good comparison with that dire wolf photo. Unfortunately, it was the only one that was decently preserved that I could find. The dire wolf was also mostly found in the Florida and California areas, where there were more tar pits. I didn't find anything about fossils found in Britain or anywhere in the United Kingdom, so I'm not sure you can safely count the dire wolf as a candidate for the Wargs made in the movies. I think Peter Jackson just decided that the Wargwraiths needed mounts as ugly as their riders so that the image of the majestic wolf wouldn't be marred.
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