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Spoiler:

In 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services conducted a captive-breeding experiment at their National Wildlife Research Center Predator Research Facility in Logan, Utah. Using gray wolves from British Columbia and western coyotes, they produced six hybrids, making this the first hybridization case between pure coyotes and northwestern gray wolves. The experiment, which used artificial insemination, was intended to determine whether or not the sperm of the larger gray wolves in the west was capable of fertilizing the egg cells of western coyotes. Aside from the historical hybridizations between coyotes and the smaller Mexican gray wolves in the south, as well as with eastern wolves and red wolves, grays wolves from the northwestern USA and western provinces of Canada were not known to interbreed with coyotes in the wild, thus prompting the experiment. The six resulting hybrids included four males and two females. At six months of age, the hybrids were closely monitored and were shown to display both physical and behavioral characteristics from both species, as well as some physical similarities to the eastern wolves, whose status as a distinct wolf species or as a genetically distinct subspecies of the gray wolf is controversial. Regardless, the result of this experiment concluded that northwestern gray wolves, much like the eastern wolves, red wolves, Mexican gray wolves, and domestic dogs, are capable of hybridizing with coyotes.

In 2015, a research team from the cell and microbiology department of Anoka-Ramsey Community College revealed that an F2 litter of two pups had been produced from two of the original hybrids. At the same time, despite the six F1's successful delivery from the same coyote, they were not all full siblings because multiple sperm from eight different northwestern gray wolves were used in their production. The successful production of the F2 litter, nonetheless, confirmed that hybrids of coyotes and northwestern gray wolves are just as fertile as hybrids of coyotes to eastern and red wolves. Both the  and hybrids were found to be phenotypically intermediate between the western gray wolves and coyotes. Unlike the hybrids, which were produced via artificial insemination, the litter was produced from a natural breeding. The study also discovered through sequencing 16S ribosomal RNA encoding genes that the  hybrids all have an intestinal microbiome distinct from both parent species, but were once reported to be present in some gray wolves. Moreover, analysis of their complementary DNA and ribosomal RNA revealed that the hybrids have very differential gene expressions compared to those in gray wolf controls.