Australian scientists believe that they now understand how a reddish, dog-sized carnivore could have wound up on the Falkland Islands, 285 miles from the nearest mainland, some 16,000 years ago.

The mystery surrounding the origin of a wolflike predator that once lived near Antarctica a puzzle that stumped even Charles Darwin has now been solved, researchers say.

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Theextinct carnivoreapparently made its way to islands hundreds of miles from the nearest continent by crossing the frozen sea thousands of years ago, scientists explained.

The reddish coyote-sized Falkland Islands wolf was the only mammal native to theFalkland Islandsfar off the east coast of Argentina. The foxlike predator lived on seals, penguins and sea birds until hunters exterminated it in 1876.

The existence of the Falklands wolf perplexed Darwin when he first encountered it in 1834. "How did this great big carnivore arrive to a set of islands 460 kilometers (285 miles) from the nearest mainland when no other terrestrial mammal did?" asked researcher Alan Cooper, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia. "If it came by a land bridge, then the islands should've been covered with rodents as well, since South America is rodent central."

"It was incredibly tame it swam out to meet sailors, wagging its tail," Cooper told LiveScience. "That led to suggestions that it was a semi-domesticated dog that Native Americans took out while hunting, explaining how it got to the Falklands when there were no other mammals there." [Gallery: Photos Reveal Amazing Wolves]

However, past analysis ofDNA from museum specimensof the Falklands wolf, including one that Darwin collected, revealed it was not a dog after all. Instead, its nearest living ancestor was the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus) from the South American savannas, an odd predator resembling a red fox with almost stiltlike legs.

To help solve the mystery of how the Falklands wolf colonized the islands, Cooper and his colleagues compared its DNA with remains of what seemed like its closest extinct mainland relative,Dusicyon avus. This carnivore is similar to the Falklands wolf, save for smaller teeth and jaws.

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How did those wolves get to the Falkland Islands ? Scientists may have an answer.