Gray wolf (Canis lupis)
This week we’ll celebrate Howloween by meeting one of the season’s most famous representatives, the gray wolf (Canis lupis).
First fun fact: If you own a dog – you own a wolf. Literally. All domestic dogs are a single subspecies of the gray wolf. Domestic dogs are subspecies Canis lupis familiaris.
Coyotes are a separate Canis species and other canids such as foxes, dingoes and hyenas are in the same family Canidae, but in different genuses.
What’s in a name? Gray wolves aren’t necessarily gray. They can be gray, black, tawny or white. White Arctic wolves are another gray wolf subspecies Canis lupis arctos.
Black coated gray wolves came about from a single gene introduced into the North American gray wolf population when a wolf and a domestic dog from Europe fell in love a very long time ago.
Now scientists have discovered that long-ago love story has proved advantageous for the darker coated gray wolves. Black wolves have better natural immunity to pathogens. For example, they survive in greater numbers during distemper outbreaks. And let’s face it, they look super cool.
Size-wise gray wolf males weigh between 90 and 110 pounds and can be up to two and one-half feet at the shoulder. Females are slightly shorter at the shoulder and weigh between 80 and 90 pounds.
By comparison, coyotes weigh between 15 and 30 pounds and are one and one-half feet at the shoulder.
If you’ve ever seen tracks and wondered “wolf or coyote?” Wolf tracks are much larger than coyote tracks. Wolf tracks are five inches long and four inches wide. Coyote tracks are two and one-half inches long and two and one-quarter inches wide.
Of course, any canid tracks of either size could just as easily be domestic dog tracks as well.
Wolves are highly social animals, forming packs with an average of four to 15 members. Occasionally a pack will grow to 30 members in size, but usually a pack that large will split up.
Only the alpha male and female within a pack breed and they’ll have between four and six pups each spring, this helps keep the pack compact. The wolf mum also gets endless free daycare because all members of the pack help care for the pups.
From April through September, pack activity is centered around hunting and bringing food to the pups who stay in a centrally located den. In September the pups are grown enough to go out and about with the rest of the pack.
Pups will stay with the pack for at least three years, then decide whether to stay on with the pack or strike out on their own individually to find or form new packs. Sort of like the kid that goes into the family business and stays in their hometown, versus the one who strikes out to find fame and fortune in the big city.
How far the pups have to go depends on how large their home pack’s territory is. Generally a pack lives within a 50 square mile territory, but in areas where food is scarce, those territories can grow to 1,000 square miles.
A big territory is no big deal for a wolf pack, they are the epitome of endurance, with a burst of speed when needed. Wolves average a pace of eight miles per hour during typical travel but can sprint in bursts up to 40 miles per hour.
Final fun fact: Wolves howl to communicate and warn other packs off their territory. They do not howl at the moon. However, they do howl more during the full moon because of the extra light allows them to move and hunt more easily and they need to “chat” while doing so.