Giles: Multivariate Analysis of Pleistocene and Recent Coyotes 387 



Only horizontal-ramus breadth serves to distinguish C. petrolei from C. I. orcutti. 

 Following the procedure for discriminant-function analysis, the adjusted mean- 

 differences, summed as for a chi-square test, gave these results: 



C. petrolei-C. latrans orcutti 15.522 



C. petrolei-C . lupus ssp 32.341 



Application of a c7ii-square test shows that this difference between C. petrolei and 

 C. I. orcutti has a significance very slightly greater than 1 per cent. In other words, 

 a C. I. orcutti specimen might be expected to approximate the configuration of 

 C. petrolei once in slightly more than a hundred times. Since the levels of sig- 

 nificance of the multivariate test and the horizontal-ramus breadth test are both 

 just slightly greater than 1 per cent, there is no morphological patterning char- 

 acteristic of petrolei or orcutti as far as the measured dimensions are concerned, 

 except the thicker horizontal ramus in petrolei. This, coupled with the extreme 

 divergence of C. petrolei from the modern wolf, seems to throw the validity of the 

 species into serious doubt. It should be noted that in 1953 Stock himself expressed 

 some reservations about C. petrolei's status. 



Canis andersoni, the small, short-snouted coyote described by Merriam (1910), 

 is represented by the cranium of a single rather young animal, the type ( 12249 ) 

 in the collection of the University of California Museum of Paleontology (table 

 3). Merriam (1912) characterized it as a coyote with a relatively short skull and 

 a short, broad rostrum, and with teeth slightly thicker than average. It has been 

 compared with the lestes, ochropus, mearnsi, and orcutti coyotes, and in addition 

 has been tested against C. latrans clepticus, the coyote of northern Baja California. 

 Twelve specimens of this subspecies were available from Baja California, all col- 

 lected in the uplands in 1925-1926: four specimens from San Diego County, 

 collected in 1908, provided a separate sample. Jackson (Young and Jackson, 1951) 

 suggested that C. andersoni might be closely related to C. I. clepticus. Jackson (p. 

 294) found the skull of clepticus "short and broad, with especially rounded cra- 

 nium and short broad rostrum." 



The results of the analysis — given, as before, as summed squared-mean dif- 

 ferences — are : 



C. andersoni-C . I. orcutti 24.406 



C. andersoni-C. I. lestes 28.470 



C. andersoni-C. I. ochropus 29.080 



C. andersoni-C . I. mearnsi 22.902 



C. andersoni-C. I. clepticus (Baja Calif.) 26.941 



C. andersoni-C. I. clepticus (San Diego) 17.581 



The available specimens do not positively corroborate an andersoni-clepticus 

 relationship or suggest another. All except the clepticus specimens from San Diego 

 are significantly different from C. andersoni at the 1 per cent level. Since the 

 andersoni specimen is somewhat juvenile, and thus perhaps not completely diag- 

 nostic, it would seem best to withhold judgment on its affinities until more ma- 

 terial is available. 



