

Wolves leave odoriferous messages in conspicuous spots throughout their territory, such as at trail crossings, directional changes, and bridges – the same places where humans might leave a blaze or a cairn to alert fellow travelers. Known as a ‘disperser’, a solitary wolf, whether male or female, travels solo for a short while, usually in search of a mate with which to begin a new pack. Though it is infrequent, wolves do sometimes travel alone. In fact, some pups remain with their parents their entire lives. As a result of this extended childhood, strong bonds develop.
Canadian wolf size how to#
Sight is the least developed sense in the wolf, yet its night vision is strong and superior to humans due to the high proportion of rods to cones in the retina.įrom an early age, wolves are taught what and how to hunt during a long apprenticeship with their parents and other pack adults. Wolves can hear up to 80kHz, whereas a human can only hear to 20kHz. The wolf’s sense of hearing is much stronger as well. Because of this, a wolf’s sense of smell is approximately 100 times greater than man’s. Smell is this creature’s most acute sense, and the surface area within its nose, sensitive to smell, is 14 times greater than that of a human’s. When the time comes to finally close in on their prey, they can crank their engines to a 45-mile per hour sprint. Traveling at a nonstop, five-mile per hour trot, wolves can cover up to 125 miles in a day. This means that the front leg and back leg travel in the same plane, affording the wolf a smooth, swinging stride that seems almost effortless. Its long legs hang down from a torso that is as wide at the shoulders as it is at the hips. The gray wolf’s streamlined body is built for trekking. Like its size, the gray wolf’s fur color is based on geographic distribution as well, and ranges from pure white in the Arctic populations, to mixtures of white with brown, cinnamon, and black, to nearly uniform black in some color phases. The hairs comprising the overcoat are coarse and hollow, providing insulation. The undercoat is the thicker of the two layers and helps to trap warm air, which aids in temperature regulation. Technically, the gray wolf has two fur coats – an undercoat and an overcoat. A wolf’s height is measured from the base of its paws to its shoulders, and generally ranges from two to three feet. Broad chested with small, rounded ears and long legs, this species usually weights between 44 and 165 pounds, and its body, from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail, ranges from five to seven feet in length. The largest of approximately 41 wild species of canids, gray wolves vary in size based primarily upon geographic locality. The Canis lupis is commonly known as the gray wolf or timber wolf.
