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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Canidae
Genus: Canis
Species: Canis lupus
Description
Description
The largest extant member of the Canidae family. They are slender and powerfully built; they have longer legs than those of other canids allowing them to move swiftly, even through snow. Their ears are relatively small and triangular, while their head is large and heavy.
Female wolves tend to have narrower muzzles and foreheads, thinner necks, slightly shorter legs, and smaller shoulders than males.
Evolution
Subspecies: see subspecies subpage
Evolutionary ancestors of wolves include:
Canis chihliensis
Canis lepophagus
Canis etruscus
The first ancestors of wolves are part of a group called caniforms. They split off of the super-family Carnivoramorpha around 40 million years ago.
The closest living relative to wolves are the coyote.
Gray wolves used to roam quite a large area. However, as civilizations expanded wolves were killed/exterminated to keep settlers and cattle safe.
Distribution:
As the above graphic shows, wolves can be found in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
Wolves are not an invasive species and even serve as the apex predator where they are found, though the wolves in Yellowstone could be considered an invasive species because they are descended from wolves that were brought there from Canada; the original wolves from Yellowstone were exterminated.
Habitats:
Wolves can thrive in a diversity of habitats. From the tundra to woodlands, forests, grasslands, and even deserts.
Gray wolves live in habitats that range in temperature from -70˚F to 120˚F. (-50˚C to 48.8˚C).
As mentioned above, the terrain that they typically live in range from forests, arctic tundras, mountains, and prairies.
Competition
Competition
Gray wolves often times, share habitats with cougars, bear, and coyotes. They all compete for the same pray. Coyotes and wolves especially, have issues with competition, coyotes will sometimes steal the uneaten food from wolf kills. They will also compete for fawns, leading to wolves chasing, harassing, and sometimes killing coyotes.
Diet:
Gray wolves prefer to eat large ungulates like deer, elk, bison, and moose. They will also eat smaller animals, like beavers, foxes, and hares. In addition, while not recent in Alaska, gray wolves have been found catching and eating fish.
Gray wolves mainly hunt in packs. They find their prey, then they chase down the weakest of the bunch and eat them.
On average, wolves eat around 10 lbs of meat per day. However, they eat with a feast or famine lifestyle, potentially going several days without a meal, then gorging themselves on more than 20 lbs of meat.
Deer
Elk
Moose
Bison
Beaver
Fox
Hare
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