A Singular Violence Fine Art Print

A Singular Violence: North American Megafauna Project, #5
Cervalces scotti and Virgin's Bower Vine

The fifth installment of the North American Megafauna Project illustrations, A Singular Violence pays homage to the formidable jaws and bite strength - the greatest of any known canid-like species - of the unique Aenocyon dirus.

Popularly known as the direwolf, A. dirus was not, in fact, a wolf at all, but an entirely separate species that was so far removed from wolves that it is believed that the migration of grey wolves out of Eurasia and into North America was a trigger for the extinction of A. dirus, as they were not able to interbreed with the incoming species swarming their territory.

While among the top predators of Pleistocene North America, however, A. dirus ranged widely across the continent, with fossils of this fearsome predator found from coast to coast. A Singular Violence nods to fossils found in the southern states of the US, however, in locations such as the Grey Fossil Site in Tennessee, and the large concentration of direwolf fossils in Florida.

Scattering, blood-like, from the jaws of A. dirus in A Singular Violence, are sprays of the strikingly beautiful Fire Pink flowers, which, though once common throughout the Smoky Mountains and much of the South, are now classified as endangered in multiple states.

They aren't the only species endangered in this area, however. The modern-day Red Wolf currently found only in North Carolina is the most endangered wolf species in the world, and other creatures such as the Miami Blue Butterfly, the Eastern Indigo Snake, and the Ozark Hellbender may be lost to time as A. dirus was unless we take action to protect their territories from new invasive species, commercial development, and pollution.

Printed on uncoated acid-free paper with fade-resistant, archival inks. 11” x 17”

Handle gently to avoid damaging the velvety texture of this print, and frame using archival materials for longevity of display.