Short answers, pulled from the story.
A geologist named Joseph Granville Norwood found a fossilized jawbone in mid-1854 near Evansville, Indiana. Paleontologist Joseph Leidy examined the bone that same year and determined it represented an extinct species of wolf.
The species was originally reported as Canis primaevus in 1854 before being renamed Canis indianensis due to nomenclature rules. In 1912 John Campbell Merriam formally recognized the specimens under the name C.dirus and later proposed consolidating them into the separate genus Aenocyon in 1918.
Dire wolves had the greatest bite force at canine teeth among placental mammals measuring 163 newtons per kilogram of body weight. This measurement exceeds African hunting dogs at 142, gray wolves at 136, dholes at 112, and dingoes at 108.
The Quaternary extinction event occurred around 12,700 years before present causing the disappearance of many mammal genera. The youngest known specimen from Rancho La Brea California dated 11,413 ± 754 calibrated years before present while uncalibrated geological ages assigned remains dated 9,440YBP.
Isotope analysis indicates dire wolves primarily fed on juvenile bison and camels with lesser amounts of Harlan ground sloth. They also scavenged American mastodon and ground sloth carcasses but showed a preference for consuming ruminants such as bison when food was available.