To figure it out, a University of Adelaide team did some DNA digging. First they tested tissue samples from the skull of a wolf Darwin himself (!) collected and samples from a recently uncovered wolf specimen in New Zealand. They also looked at six specimens from a related species--the almost-wolf Dusicyon avus--to determine when, exactly, the Falkland wolf diverged genetically. DNA testing seemed to show the two split ways about 16,000 years ago.