40 Fun Facts About Arctic Wolf

Arctic wolves usually raise pups in caves or rock outcrops because what makes digging a den so difficult?

Permafrost is ground that stays frozen all year, so the wolves shelter in rocky outcrops, caves or shallow hollows instead of digging.

Sleeping outdoors at −40 degrees, an Arctic wolf tucks its muzzle between its hind legs and covers its face with what?

Its tail works as a built-in scarf, letting northern wolves rest comfortably on open ground. Handily, −40 is the one temperature that reads the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit.

Which word for a pack's top wolf did Arctic wolf biologist L. David Mech help popularise in 1970, then call outdated?

Alpha spread through Mech's 1970 book The Wolf, which stayed in print until 2022 even though he had long since stopped using the label himself.

Which shaggy, horned grazer, several times heavier than a wolf, is the main large prey of Arctic wolf packs?

Muskox herds are the packs' mainstay, and the hunters matter just as much to the hunted: wolves may account for up to half of all deaths in the species.

To lose less body heat, Arctic wolves have smaller, rounder versions of which feature than other grey wolves?

Ears that are small and rounded lose less heat, and the same trick shows up in the wolves' shorter muzzles and legs.

An Arctic wolf that attacked three people at a far-northern weather station later tested positive for which disease?

Rabies explained the attack, a rare exception among wolves that had lived beside the station for decades and grown used to its staff.

Which vast island just east of Ellesmere Island has its own closely related wolf, Canis lupus orion?

Greenland lies so close that wolves have been documented out on the ice when the Nares Strait between the two islands freezes over.

Arctic wolf pups, entirely dependent on their mother at first, are born lacking which two senses?

Sight and hearing are both missing at birth, so the mother stays with the litter while her mate brings food to her.

A breeding pair of Arctic wolves, like other grey wolves, usually stays together for how long?

For life is the rule: a pack's dominant male and female bond for good, and usually only that pair breeds each year.

Besides their big horned prey, which small white animals do Arctic wolves hunt most and often feed to their pups?

Hares are such a staple that one study found wolf numbers rose and fell with the hare population rather than with the supply of bigger game.

Which cold, treeless biome, whose name may come from a Sámi word, is the native habitat of Arctic wolves?

Tundra covers the High Arctic islands where the wolves live; bitter cold and a short growing season stop trees from taking hold there.

Arctic wolves on Ellesmere Island hunt through about four months of round-the-clock winter darkness known by what name?

Polar night barely slowed a pack leader tracked by GPS collar: his travels during the dark months matched those of the rest of the year.

In summer, Arctic wolves on Ellesmere Island hunt under 24-hour daylight, a phenomenon known by what name?

Midnight sun lasts from mid-April to late August in the heart of the wolves' range, giving the packs more than four months without a sunset.

Which small rodents, known for dramatic population booms roughly every four years, do Arctic wolves sometimes eat?

Lemmings are a snack rather than a staple, and the wolves' recorded menu is broader still, running to birds and even beetles.

Which antlered animal, whose smallest High Arctic form is named after explorer Robert Peary, do Arctic wolves also hunt?

Caribou of the Peary type are the smallest in North America, and Inuit, who call the animal tuktu, rely on it as a major food source too.

When Arctic wolves close in, their largest horned prey form an outward-facing ring to shield which members of the herd?

Calves shelter in the middle while the adults stand shoulder to shoulder facing the threat, with the bulls usually taking the front line.

According to WWF, what is the greatest threat to Arctic wolves, a subspecies almost untouched by hunting?

Climate change brings extreme weather swings that make it harder for the wolves' prey to find food, so fewer prey animals survive to feed the packs.

Arctic wolves, grouped with other grey wolves and once rated vulnerable, hold which IUCN Red List category?

Least concern has been the grey wolf's rating since 1996, and the Arctic wolf's remote range has spared it the persecution wolves met farther south.

Ellesmere Island, the best-known home of Arctic wolves, lies in which part of Canada, created in 1999?

Nunavut was separated from the Northwest Territories under a land claims agreement that gave Inuit self-government.

Weaned Arctic wolf pups nibble and lick an adult's muzzle to make it do what?

Regurgitate meat: adults swallow food at the kill, carry it home in their stomachs and bring it up for the pups, a job the whole pack shares.

Arctic wolves belong to which biological family, a group that also includes foxes, jackals and coyotes?

Canidae ranges from the tiny fennec fox to the grey wolf, which is the largest wild member of the family.

Arctic wolf skulls have been shrinking since 1930, probably because the wolves interbred with which animals?

Domestic dogs crossing with the wolves is the likely cause; the subspecies is otherwise told apart by its whiter coat and narrower braincase.

Arctic wolves are native to which Canadian island group, renamed in 1953 to mark a coronation?

Queen Elizabeth Islands became the group's name when Elizabeth II was crowned; until then the area had been known as the Parry Islands.

In Inuit tradition, which giant wolf is said to stalk and devour anyone foolish enough to hunt alone at night?

Amarok hunts alone, unlike real wolves, and the legend has travelled far: Volkswagen borrowed the name for a pickup truck.

The carnassials, larger in Arctic wolves than in their mainland neighbours, are teeth specialised for which job?

Slicing flesh is their speciality: the upper and lower blades slide past each other like a pair of scissors, cutting meat rather than tearing it.

A member of Otto Sverdrup's expedition kept a pair of shadowing Arctic wolves at a distance by waving what?

A ski pole was enough to hold the pair back; wolves in this region see so few people that they approach with caution and curiosity rather than fear.

Otto Sverdrup recorded Arctic wolves trailing a crewmate during an expedition aboard which Norwegian exploration ship?

Fram, whose name means Forward, also carried Nansen and Amundsen on their expeditions and is now preserved in its own museum in Oslo.

Whose photograph of a leaping Arctic wolf on Ellesmere Island was named among 100 photos that changed Canada?

Jim Brandenburg went on to write two books about the same wolves, White Wolf and To the Top of the World.

Arctic wolves are white all year as adults, but what colour is the short, soft fur of a newborn pup?

Greyish brown fuzz covers newborn wolf pups, which are said to look much like German Shepherd puppies.

Arctic wolves have lived for decades beside which Ellesmere Island outpost, the world's northernmost inhabited place?

Alert is a Canadian Forces station 817 km from the North Pole, and the wolves around it became so used to people that several aggressive encounters followed.

On Ellesmere Island, biologist L. David Mech kept up with Arctic wolves that had grown used to him by using what?

An all-terrain vehicle let him clock the wolves' everyday travelling pace at 8.7 km/h, rising to 10 km/h when they were heading home to a den.

Rather than a band of rivals, a typical wild Arctic wolf pack is made up of whom?

Parents and their young make up the usual pack, a nuclear family in which every adult helps to feed and educate the pups.

In 2009, researchers sedated an Ellesmere Island wolf for GPS collaring by firing a dart from just 1.5 metres with what?

A blowgun was all it took, because the pack leader let the scientists come that close; he was back on his feet and fully recovered a few hours later.

Which Scottish wildlife cameraman filmed an Ellesmere Island wolf pack for the BBC series Snow Wolf Family and Me?

Gordon Buchanan visited in both summer and autumn, following the pack as it raised its cubs over the course of a year.

Arctic wolves gather the pack before a hunt and warn off neighbouring packs with which far-carrying sound?

Howling carries for kilometres across open ground, and wolves seem to do it for pleasure as well as for business.

In May 1987, which magazine ran the feature At Home With the Arctic Wolf, written by biologist L. David Mech?

National Geographic ran it the year after its author began what became 25 summers of watching wolves on Ellesmere Island.

Arctic wolves mark territory boundaries by leaving what on rocks and snowbanks along their hunting trails?

Urine, along with droppings, works as a scent signpost; a wolf's nose is keen enough to sense an animal three days after it has passed.

A GPS-collared Arctic wolf pack on Ellesmere Island had, when reported in 2011, the largest recorded wolf what?

Home range was the record: the pack covered 6,640 square kilometres, and its leader travelled at least 5,979 km in nine months.

Where on its body does an Arctic wolf grow extra tufts of hair to cope with icy ground?

Between its paw pads the wolf carries its own snow boots, and a dense coat with soft, thick underfur covers the rest.

In which season, as the High Arctic's long daylight returns, are Arctic wolf pups usually born?

Late spring births, around the end of May or early June, give the pups the brief Arctic summer to grow; by autumn most are close to adult size.