Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia (all animals)
Phylum: Chordata (animals with notochords)
Subphylum: Vertebrata (animals with a skeleton of bone or cartilage)
Class: Mammalia (mammals)
Order: Carnivora (carnivores)
Family: Canidae (dog family)
Genus: Canis (dogs)
Species: lupus (wolves)
Physical description
The physical appearance of the wolf is much like a dog, the average length (from tip of nose to tip of tail) is about 5 to 6.5 feet on males and 4.5 to 6 feet on females.
Other typical characteristics include:
Average height(at the shoulder)
26 to 32 inches
Average weight
males: 70 to 110 pounds;
females: 60 to 80 pounds
Weight at birth
1 pound
Longevity
up to 13 years in wild; 14 to 15 years in captivity
Average foot size
4 inches wide by 5 inches long
Pelage
gray, but can also be black or white
Number of teeth
42 teeth
Breeding season
February to March
Gestation period
63 days
Litter
Size of a wolf litter is 4 to 6 pups. Pup mortality rate is approximately 40% to 60% a year.
Speed
5 mph on average, but can reach speeds of 35 mph during a chase
Packs
A pack of wolves is usually a family group consisting of a pair of adult parents, and their offspring of the last 2 or 3 years. Packs vary in size because of birth rate of pups, dispersal and mortality. Typical pack consists of 2 to 15 wolves. The size of a pack's territory may be anything from 25 to 1000 square miles.
Behavior
Wolves are extremely social animals. They co-operate with other pack members to maintain territories, obtain food and to bring up their young. Packs maintain and protect territories from other packs by howling, direct confrontation of trespassing wolves and by scent marking.
Communication
Wolves have a wide variety of vocalizations. They use howls for long distance communication. Howls can warn wolves of other packs that an area is occupied by a resident pack, bring together pack members which have become separated and announce to pups that other pack members are returning to the den site. Howls can help lone wolves to find others of the opposite sex in order to establish new packs. Barks and growls are the wolf's aggressive vocalizations. Adult wolves also often squeak to pups to call them, feed them or to check that they are in the neighborhood.
Body language is also an important form of communication for wolves. Postures, ears, tail and body positions give messages to other wolves about the moods and intentions of the individual.
Prey
Wolves are predators. Their common prey is deer, moose, beaver, caribou, elk, bison, musk-oxen, sheep, and the occasional goat, depending on the area they live in. Wolves also act as species regulators as they usually only prey upon the weak or diseased animals.
Social organization
Wolves fight for rank in the pack, for mates, and food. The
leader of the pack is of either sex, so called alpha wolf, followed by the beta and the omega individuals. Most aggressiveness is expressed between the betas of the same sex fighting to be an alpha. Fights usually involve a lot of noise and action: jumping, snapping and chasing. The wolves rarely get hurt, especially if they are packmates, but sometimes the wolf who loses a fight may be driven out of the pack or even killed.
Main threats to survival
Loss of habitat due to destruction,
development and encroachment by
humans. Also persecution by humans.
sources:
Wolves! page at http://members.tripod.com/rappa_3/
Canis Lupus page by Justin Strauber at http://www.hillsborough.k12.nj.us/hhs/endspeci/canislupus.html
International Wolf Center, http://www.wolf.org/