Red wolves and Gray wolves breeding?

[isaTree]

Would it be possible for a Red wolf and a Gray wolf to breed?
I realise that Red wolves are much more rare in the wild now, but their breeding periods and living spaces do overlap.

[BlackWarrior]

Hey there isaTree,
I do believe this is possible, although extremely rare. Seeing that wolves have already begun to breed with coyotes, it seems this sort of odd behavior has been seen before. I personally have never heard of such a thing happening, although i imagine that if the wolves were extremely desperate and the species survival was depending on the breeding of a male and female wolf, this would be a likely result. This seems to be what happened with the wolves and the coyotes to create the Coy-wolf. Though because Red wolves are very uncommon to see and their numbers are very low, and gray wolves are very high, this sort of thing could go either way.
Hopefully this gives a basic idea, although perhaps an expert could fill me in and add in. ^^

[isaTree]

Thank you for the help, BlackWarrior. I hope a professional might be able to clear this up, too.

[BlackWarrior]

Adding on~~
It appears that, because red wolves numbers are so low, they have actually been known to breed with coyotes and create hybrids. I was reading my wolf info book and found that red wolves also, more closely relate coyotes then grey wolves, so if grey wolves are known to breed with coyotes, a dispersal male might find a female red wolf as a willing mate. Though, as I said, this is most likely very rare, it appears that the more I read, the more I find that the chance of this happening raises. It seems wolves, and nature in general, will always find away if need-be. Even though usually wolves, and coyotes, and other wolf species generally steer clear of eachothers territories.
Hope some more of this helps. ^^

[Steeps]

I’m no professional isaTree, but a quote from this article http://www.wolfsource.org/?cat=55 might help to answer your question. As you may know, red wolves are a hybrid species between gray wolves and coyotes:

The recent study showed a gradient of hybridization in wolves.

In the West, wolves were pure wolf, while in the western Great Lakes, they averaged 85 percent wolf and 15 percent coyote. Wolves in Algonquin Park in eastern Ontario averaged 58 percent wolf.

The red wolf in North Carolina, which has been the subject of extensive preservation and restoration efforts, was found to be 24 percent wolf and 76 percent coyote.

Northeastern coyotes, which only colonized the region in the past 60 years, were found to be 82 percent coyote, 9 percent dog and 9 percent wolf.

With the genetic makeup of the red wolf in mind, my guess would be ‘no’ when there are other gray wolves in the area, and ‘yes’ when there aren’t other gray wolves in the area. Gray wolves usually see coyotes as competition, and will kill them given the opportunity. Since the red wolf is predominantly coyote, I would figure that it would be a rarity for gray wolves to select them as mates under normal breeding conditions, as Blackwarrior previously stated.

[Koa]

The general rule for hybrids is that if they are in the same genus, they can interbreed. [There are a few exceptions to this rule in some cases, however.] Both the red wolf and gray wolf are under the genus Canis, so they can interbreed.