120 Fun Facts About Wolf

What is the scientific name of the gray wolf?

Canis latrans is the coyote and Canis aureus the golden jackal; the wolf is close enough to both to produce fertile hybrids.

The wolf is the largest living wild member of which animal family?

It is set apart from coyotes and jackals by a broader snout, shorter ears, a shorter torso and a longer tail.

According to biologists, what effect do the phases of the Moon have on wolf howling?

Wolves howl to assemble the pack before and after hunts, to raise an alarm at a den, and to find each other in storms or unfamiliar terrain.

A wild wolf pack is, at its core, what kind of group?

Offspring typically stay with their parents for anywhere from 10 to 54 months before dispersing to find mates of their own.

Resting in the open at -40°, northern wolves cover their faces with what?

They tuck the muzzle between the rear legs; a well-fed wolf also stores fat around the heart, kidneys and bone marrow for winter.

In what condition are wolf pups at birth?

Newborn wolf pups look a lot like German Shepherd puppies and first leave the den at about three weeks old.

How many teeth does an adult wolf have?

Those heavy teeth are better suited to crushing bone than any other canid's, though not as specialised as a hyena's.

Yellowstone biologists put a wolf's bite pressure at roughly how many pounds per square inch?

Wolves typically start feeding on the largest internal organs first: heart, liver, lungs and stomach lining.

What is a wolf's top running speed, according to Yellowstone's wolf biologists?

Most of the time wolves travel at a cruising pace of about 5 mph, saving the sprint for the final moments of a hunt.

In what year were gray wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park?

The first 14 wolves arrived in two January shipments and were held in acclimation pens until late March.

The first Yellowstone wolves were captured near which Canadian national park?

Ranch groups objected that the wrong subspecies, the northwestern wolf, was being brought south instead of the Northern Rocky Mountains wolf.

In Roman legend, which twins were suckled by a she-wolf?

The image of the she-wolf nursing the twins was a symbol of Rome by at least the 3rd century BC and appears on some of the city's earliest silver coins.

In Norse mythology, the giant wolf Fenrir is fated to swallow which god at Ragnarök?

The god's son Víðarr then avenges him, kicking one foot into the wolf's lower jaw and tearing it apart.

Which Norse god lost a hand after placing it in Fenrir's mouth as a pledge?

The unbreakable fetter Gleipnir was forged by dwarves after ordinary chains failed to hold the wolf.

Which French author published the first written version of Little Red Riding Hood in 1697?

In that first version the wolf simply falls asleep after eating the girl and the story ends; the rescuing huntsman came later with the Brothers Grimm.

In The Three Little Pigs, what is the one house the Big Bad Wolf cannot blow down made of?

The now-standard line 'I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in' first appeared in print in 1886.

'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' is a fable attributed to which ancient storyteller?

It is number 210 in the Perry Index, the standard catalogue of the fables.

In Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, which instruments represent the wolf?

The bird is a flute, the duck an oboe, the cat a clarinet and the grandfather a bassoon; the hunters' gunshots are the drums.

Arctic wolves of the High Arctic islands mainly hunt Arctic hares and which large shaggy animal?

Wolves on Ellesmere Island see so few people that they show little fear and will approach humans cautiously and curiously.

The Ethiopian wolf, Africa's most endangered carnivore, is a specialist hunter of what?

It hunts by day, when its prey is active, and in the Bale Mountains has learned to forage among cattle herds to hide its approach.

Roughly how many wild gray wolves are there worldwide?

Persecution has still shrunk the species' range to about one-third of its historic extent.

How does the IUCN Red List classify the gray wolf as a species worldwide?

Its wide range and stable numbers earn the lowest-risk category, even though it is locally extinct across much of Western Europe, the United States and Mexico.

Which country holds an estimated 50,000–60,000 wolves, making it the species' most important stronghold?

Its wolves still occupy about 80% of their historical range, and as many as 4,000 may be harvested there each year.

Under the right conditions, a wolf's howl can be heard across up to about how many square miles?

Scent-marking with urine is actually a more effective way of advertising territory than howling.

In what year were the last wolves killed in Yellowstone before their eventual reintroduction?

The final victims were two pups found near Soda Butte Creek and killed by park rangers.

Within two years of wolves returning to Yellowstone, what happened to the park's coyote population?

Coyotes learned to flee uphill: heavier wolves cannot stop on a slope, letting the coyote open up a big lead.

Which animal is the favoured prey of Yellowstone's wolves?

The recovery plan predicted each wolf would kill about 12 a year; the real figure turned out closer to 22.

The chain of ecosystem changes set off by returning wolves to Yellowstone is a textbook example of what?

Wolf kills also feed ravens, eagles, wolverines, grizzlies and magpies, and grizzlies benefited from more berries as elk browsing fell.

Yellowstone had a single beaver colony in 2001; how many did it have by 2011?

Elk under pressure from wolves browse more widely, easing their grazing on the willows beavers need to survive winter.

In 2011 the collared wolf OR-7, 'Journey', became the first wild wolf confirmed in which US state since 1924?

He wandered more than 1,000 miles from northeastern Oregon, and his descendants later formed packs south of the border.

Captive-bred red wolves were released in 1987 at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in which state?

The species had been declared extinct in the wild in 1980 so the last 400 animals could be captured and a breeding programme started.

Since 1996 the IUCN has listed the red wolf under which category?

By late 2021 the wild population in eastern North Carolina had dwindled to about eight animals.

Captive-bred Mexican wolves, or 'lobos', were first released back into the wild in 1998 in which state?

Just 11 animals were released that first year; by 2026 there were at least 319 in the wild in the US.

The largest collection of dire wolf fossils comes from which site?

Isotope studies of those Los Angeles specimens suggest dire wolves fed mainly on juvenile bison and camels.

Per a 2021 DNA study, dire wolves last shared an ancestor with wolf-like canines how long ago?

That deep split is why the animal now sits in its own genus, Aenocyon, 'terrible wolf', a name first proposed in 1918.

Colossal's 2025 female 'dire wolf' pup was named after what Game of Thrones title?

The IUCN's Canid Specialist Group ruled the animals were neither dire wolves nor proxies of them; Colossal's own chief scientist later called them 'grey wolves with 20 edits'.

The idea of the wolf-pack 'alpha' traces to a 1947 study of captive wolves at a zoo in which city?

Up to ten unrelated wolves were kept in a 10-by-20-metre enclosure, a setting that manufactures the very dominance battles wild families rarely have.

L. David Mech's 1970 book The Wolf popularised the 'alpha' concept. What did Mech later do about it?

In 1999 and 2000 he published papers arguing that in wild packs the so-called alphas are simply the parents.

About what share of its own body weight can a wolf eat in a single sitting?

It can digest that meal in a few hours and feed several times in a day, storing fat around the heart, kidneys and bone marrow for lean times.

On average, how far does a wolf pack travel per day while searching for prey?

That works out to roughly 9% of the pack's territory covered every day.

The largest wolf territory on record, some 6,272 square kilometres, was held by a pack in which US state?

The smallest on record, just 33 square kilometres, belonged to a pack of six in northeastern Minnesota.

In which country did wolves survive until about 1770, a century after Great Britain?

Central Europe lost its wolves by 1899, France by the 1930s and much of Scandinavia by the early 1970s.

Which country has an estimated 7,000 wolves, more than the rest of the Middle East combined?

Elsewhere in the region the entire wolf population may total only 1,000 to 2,000 animals.

Which Swedish naturalist first classified the wolf, giving it its two-part scientific name in 1758?

He treated the dog as a separate species because of its 'cauda recurvata', the upturned tail found in no other canid.

Roughly how many adult Ethiopian wolves were estimated to survive in 2011?

They cling to seven isolated mountain ranges above 3,000 metres, more than half of them in the Bale Mountains.

Nate Blakeslee's American Wolf tells the life of which Yellowstone wolf, shot by a hunter in 2012?

Also known as 832F, she was killed just outside the park during Wyoming's first hunting season, the eighth wolf legally taken there that year.

The largest pack ever recorded in Yellowstone, 37 wolves in 2001, was which pack?

Yellowstone's average pack size is 9.8, and the average lifespan inside the park is only four to five years.

On Isle Royale, wolves are studied alongside which prey animal, the only place the two coexist without bears?

The two populations rise and fall in a cycle, and 19 wolves were relocated to the island in 2018–19 to stop the pack dying out.

In November 2020, voters in which US state narrowly approved a ballot measure to reintroduce wolves?

Proposition 114 set a 2023 deadline, and the first wolves were released onto public land that December.

How long do mated wolf pairs typically stay together?

Females can produce a litter every year, with pups usually born in spring after a gestation of 62 to 75 days.

Yellowstone biologists estimate which wolf sense to be thousands of times keener than a human's?

It has never been precisely measured, but it lets a pack locate carrion and rivals from far away.

The word 'lycanthropy', the werewolf transformation, comes from Ancient Greek roots meaning what?

Ancient writers used the term only for a clinical delusion in which a patient imagined himself to be a wolf.

Which author wrote White Fang, the 1906 novel about a wolfdog in the Yukon?

It was serialised in Outing magazine before appearing as a book that October, a companion piece to The Call of the Wild.

In Never Cry Wolf (1963), Farley Mowat claimed the Barren Lands wolves lived largely on what rather than caribou?

The biologist who supervised his fieldwork later called the book 'semi-fictional' and said Mowat was never alone in the field.

In Kazakhstan and Mongolia, wolves have traditionally been hunted with the help of which animal?

The practice is fading because experienced falconers are becoming few in number.

Most recorded wolf attacks on people have been attributed to animals suffering from what?

A rabid wolf usually acts alone, travelling long distances and biting large numbers of people and livestock.

Where did North American black wolves get their dark coat colour, according to genetic research?

Dogs first crossed the Bering Strait 12,000 to 14,000 years ago and left the gene behind.

Besides meat, which of these do North American wolves eat?

European wolves go further, eating apples, pears, figs, melons and cherries; grass is swallowed mainly to induce vomiting and clear parasites.

Descended from wolves, the dog holds what distinction among all the animals humans keep?

It is also the only large carnivore humans have ever domesticated, and the only animal brought into the household during the Pleistocene.

Wild gray wolves are native to North America and which other landmass?

Africa's only wolf is the separate Ethiopian species, and Australia's dingo is a feral dog rather than a wild wolf.

Wolves have been killed while trying to bring down which of their smallest hoofed prey?

A single wolf has occasionally been seen killing much larger prey unaided, but the hunt is never risk-free.

The extinct Japanese wolf is still honoured at roughly 20 shrines on Honshu belonging to which religion?

The wolf lived on Kyushu, Shikoku and Honshu but never Hokkaido, which had its own separate wolf.

How long is a wolf's gestation period?

Pups are usually born in spring, weigh 300-500 grams at birth and begin to see after nine to twelve days.

In Ancient Greek religion, wolves were associated with which god?

Apollo was the god of light and order; the Bible meanwhile uses the image of a wolf lying with a lamb as a vision of utopia.

By what year had wolves been exterminated in Great Britain?

Ireland followed by 1770, Central Europe by 1899, France by the 1930s and much of Scandinavia by the early 1970s.

Which big cat significantly suppresses wolf numbers in the Russian Far East?

Tiger-wolf interactions there are well documented, sometimes driving wolves to localized extinction.

What is the mean body mass of a modern wolf?

Wolf size increases with latitude per Bergmann's rule; the largest specimen on record weighed 79.4 kg.

In Russia, wolf hunters encircle a pack with poles carrying a human scent. What is this method called?

Historic methods also included coursing with dogs, strychnine poisoning and trapping; the Borzoi was bred for wolf hunting.

In what year was the last Japanese wolf captured and killed?

Wolves are now completely extirpated from both Japan and the British Isles.

Where in Italy was one of the oldest fossils of the modern grey wolf found, dated to about 406,500 years ago?

Remains from Cripple Creek Sump in Alaska may be older still, around one million years, but are hard to tell from C. mosbachensis.

Which bird trails wolves through winter to scavenge their kills and has been seen leading them to prey?

The raven will even call wolves to a dead animal it cannot open by itself. Once the wolves tear into the carcass, the scraps are easy for the birds to reach.

Gray wolves have multiplied since people left the exclusion zone around which nuclear disaster site?

Chernobyl's abandoned zone turned into an accidental refuge, and its wolves cluster in the higher-radiation areas near the centre. Scientists track them to learn how radiation affects wild animals.

Vancouver Island's coastal 'sea wolves' swim between islands, sometimes following the migration of which fish?

Salmon make up about a quarter of what these wolves take from the ocean, and they are documented eating only the heads. That may protect them from an infection that can be fatal to wolves.

When wolf pups first open their eyes at around two weeks old, what colour are those eyes?

Blue eyes appear at 11 to 15 days, but the pups' sight is far from finished. They cannot make out shapes until weeks later.

In Game of Thrones, which direwolf, the runt of the Stark litter, is adopted and named by Jon Snow?

Ghost is an albino, a white cub that Jon takes for himself at the start of the story. The direwolf later helps him kill an undead wight that attacks his commander.

The Wolf Moon, named for wolves heard howling in midwinter, is the traditional full moon of which month?

January got the name because people believed hungry wolves howled more in deep winter. In fact the howls help wolves find pack members, mark territory and coordinate hunts.

Which state, home to the International Wolf Center, alone in the lower 48 has always kept a viable wolf population?

Minnesota's wolves held on in the remote forests of its northeastern corner while packs vanished from nearly all of the lower 48. Once protected, they spread back into Wisconsin and Michigan.

How do adult wolves returning from a hunt deliver meat to pups that are too young to follow them?

By regurgitating it, adults give pups their first solid meals from about 15 days old, when the milk incisors come through. The pups themselves stimulate the adult to bring the food up.

The aardwolf, an African hyena whose Afrikaans name means 'earth-wolf', feeds mainly on which insects?

Termites vanish by the hundred thousand: one aardwolf can lap up as many as 300,000 in a single night. Its long, sticky tongue is tough enough to withstand their bites.

Which metal has the chemical symbol W because of wolfram, the German name it carries across much of Europe?

Tungsten is called wolfram in most Germanic and Slavic languages, after the ore wolframite. The old miners' word looks like 'wolf-cream', though its true origin is obscure.

What feature of the traditional 'wolf collar' protects livestock guardian dogs from a wolf's bite to the neck?

Long iron spikes point outward so that an attacking wolf cannot get a grip on the dog. Shepherds in central Italy call their version of the collar a roccale or vreccale.

Which extinct striped marsupial was also known as the Tasmanian wolf, though unrelated to true wolves?

The thylacine looked dog-like enough to be called a wolf, yet it was a pouched carnivore. It once ranged across mainland Australia and New Guinea as well as Tasmania.

The Czechoslovakian Wolfdog began as a 1955 military experiment crossing Carpathian wolves with which breed?

A German Shepherd named Cézar and a she-wolf named Brita produced the first hybrid litter in 1958. The project started in army kennels as a scientific experiment.

Isle Royale, where wolves and their prey have been studied since 1958, lies in which of the Great Lakes?

Lake Superior froze hard enough in 1949 for a few wolves, possibly a single pair, to cross an ice bridge from Ontario. The island's research project is the longest predator-prey study ever run.

Which Russian sighthound, once used for hunting wolves, takes its name from an old word meaning 'fast'?

The Borzoi was known in English as the Russian Wolfhound until 1936. Russians use their phrase for 'fast dog' as the basic term for any sighthound.

The warrah, a tame wolf-like animal that Charles Darwin predicted would die out, lived in which archipelago?

The Falklands had no other native land mammal. The warrah was extinct by 1876, about four decades after Darwin compared its prospects to the dodo's.

Until DNA studies in 2015 proved it a separate species, the African wolf was classed as which animal?

The golden jackal label fell away when genetic tests placed the African animal closer to the gray wolf and the coyote. The two species can nonetheless produce hybrids.

What is the term for the way wolves, dogs and foxes walk on their toes rather than flat-footed?

Digitigrade animals keep their heels off the ground, which makes for a longer stride when running. Humans and bears are plantigrade and put the whole sole down.

Wolves grow larger the farther north they live, matching which principle about warm-blooded animals and climate?

Bergmann's rule says bigger bodies hold heat better, which pays off in cold climates. It is why the heaviest wolves live in the far north and the lightest in hot southern deserts.

A chronicle written for his royal family traces which conqueror's ancestry back to a blue-grey wolf and a fallow doe?

Genghis Khan's semi-mythical family tree opens The Secret History of the Mongols, written for the royal family after he died in 1227. In the legend the wolf and the doe are parents of the first Mongol.

In a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, a wolf softens his voice and whitens his paws to trick seven young what?

Goats left home alone are the targets, and the wolf goes to some trouble to fool them. He steals chalk or honey for his throat and flour to cover his black feet.

In Greek myth, which god turned the impious King Lycaon of Arcadia into a wolf?

Zeus is the god in each version, though the crime varies. In one telling Lycaon served him the flesh of his own son, and in another he sacrificed a child on the god's altar.

The Beast of Gévaudan, a 1760s man-eater thought by some to be a huge wolf, terrorised which country?

France sent soldiers, nobles and royal wolf hunters after the creature, and its identity is debated to this day. One later study counted 210 attacks that left 113 people dead.

The Skidi Pawnee of Nebraska knew which bright star as the Wolf Star?

Sirius is the Dog Star in Western tradition, so both cultures placed a dog-like animal in the same point of light. Other Pawnee branches knew it as the Coyote Star.

In Norse mythology, the wolves Sköll and Hati spend their time chasing what across the sky?

The Sun and Moon stay just ahead until Ragnarök, when the wolves are foretold to catch and devour them. Sköll hunts the Sun, while Hati pursues the Moon through the night.

Which saint is said to have tamed a fierce wolf that terrorised the Umbrian town of Gubbio around 1220?

Francis of Assisi brokers a peace in the legend: the townsfolk will feed the wolf every day and it will harm no one. The animal seals the oath by placing a forepaw in his hand.

The biblical warning about wolves in sheep's clothing appears in which address by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew?

The Sermon on the Mount uses the image for false prophets who look harmless. The fable of a wolf wearing a sheep's skin came much later and is first told by a 12th-century Greek writer.

Wolfsbane, a toxic plant whose juice is thought to have poisoned bait for wolves, is also known by which name?

Monkshood belongs to the genus Aconitum, a group of more than 250 flowering species. One old Greek name for the plant translates literally as wolf's bane.

Which 10th-century English king is traditionally said to have demanded 300 wolf pelts from the Welsh kingdoms?

Edgar the Peaceful and his tribute belong to tradition more than to proven record. Three centuries later Edward I went further and ordered every wolf in his kingdom destroyed.

Which actor starred as teenage werewolf Scott Howard in the 1985 comedy film Teen Wolf?

Michael J. Fox plays for the Beavers, a hopeless school basketball team that starts winning once the Wolf takes the court. The film went on to gross about $80 million worldwide.

Which British band's 1982 hit Hungry Like the Wolf had a jungle-adventure video filmed in Sri Lanka?

Duran Duran's clip won the first Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video in 1984. Director Russell Mulcahy suggested the location because he had just visited it.

In C. S. Lewis's first Narnia book, the wolf Maugrim serves as captain of whose secret police?

The White Witch's wolf was renamed Fenris Ulf in early American editions, after a monstrous wolf of Norse myth. Every edition since 1994 has gone back to Maugrim.

Which character leads the Seeonee wolf pack that adopts Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book?

Akela presides over the pack's council meetings in the stories. Cub Scout packs borrowed his name for anyone who acts as a leader to a Scout.

In which Studio Ghibli film is the heroine San raised by the wolf goddess Moro?

Princess Mononoke sets San and her wolf family against a nearby town led by Lady Eboshi. Moro and her pack attack the townspeople to defend the forest of the gods.

In both the 1985 film Teen Wolf and the MTV series, what is the name of Scott's best friend?

Stiles keeps the werewolf secret in both versions, and in the film he sells Teen Wolf merchandise on the side. In the series he is the son of the town sheriff.

In MTV's Teen Wolf, Scott McCall's new werewolf powers help him excel as captain in which sport?

Lacrosse replaced the basketball of the 1985 film when the story was reimagined for television. Scott's sudden success earns him the envy of teammate Jackson Whittemore.

MTV's Teen Wolf follows werewolf Scott McCall as he defends which fictional town from supernatural threats?

Beacon Hills is home in the series, while the hero of the 1985 film lived in Beacontown, Nebraska. The show ran for six seasons between 2011 and 2017.

In Dances with Wolves, what name does John Dunbar give the wolf with white forepaws that he befriends?

Two Socks gives the film its title: the Sioux name Dunbar after watching the pair chase each other. The western won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Which actor played the bitten teenager Scott McCall through all six seasons of MTV's Teen Wolf?

Tyler Posey's character starts as a social outcast and becomes a rare True Alpha. That is a leader who rises through strength of character instead of killing another Alpha.

Dogs have a small facial muscle that wolves lack, which lets them raise what into 'puppy dog eyes'?

The inner eyebrow lifts thanks to a muscle found in every dog dissected but not in wolves. Researchers think the sad, infant-like look won human care and was favoured during domestication.

The French royal wolfcatchers traced their origins to the luparii, wolf hunters serving which Frankish emperor?

Charlemagne's luparii grew into the louveterie, a prestigious post in the royal household. The office lasted through the Ancien Régime and returned under the Bourbon Restoration.

Compared with wolves, dogs from farming societies carry extra copies of genes for digesting what?

Starch-heavy scraps from human farms suited dogs that carried extra copies of amylase genes. The same diet would be inadequate for a wolf.

Amarok, a giant wolf said to devour anyone who hunts alone at night, comes from which people's mythology?

Inuit tradition sets the Amarok apart from ordinary wolves in one telling detail. Real wolves hunt in packs, but this giant always hunts by itself.

Which northern European country elected the wolf as its national animal in 2018?

Estonia calls the animal hunt in its own language, a word that looks oddly apt to English speakers.

Which German-Swiss author wrote the 1927 novel Steppenwolf, whose title a rock band borrowed four decades later?

Hermann Hesse later said his wildly popular book was largely misunderstood. Producer Gabriel Mekler suggested its title to the band behind Born to Be Wild in late 1967.

Wolverhampton Wanderers, the English football club nicknamed Wolves, have played at which stadium since 1889?

Molineux became home when the club moved from Dudley Road. Wolves were also among the twelve founder members of the Football League in 1888.

Lobo, a wolf with a $1,000 bounty on his head hunted by Ernest Thompson Seton, roamed which US state?

New Mexico's Currumpaw Valley was his range, and Seton caught him only through his mate, a white wolf nicknamed Blanca. Seton told the story in his 1898 book Wild Animals I Have Known.

Which conservationist's essay Thinking Like a Mountain recalls a she-wolf shot by his own hunting party?

Aldo Leopold had earlier been assigned to kill wolves, bears and mountain lions. Watching this one die turned him against the belief that fewer predators would mean more game.

Which ancient people, conquered by the emperor Trajan, fought under a dragon standard with wolf-like jaws?

The Dacians' standard, the draco, appears on Trajan's Column in the hands of King Decebalus's soldiers. It doubled as a wind instrument, with metal tongues set inside the open jaws.

After a late-winter mating season, wolf pups in the Great Lakes region are usually born in which season?

Spring births follow breeding in February and March. Litters of four to six pups arrive in late April or early May.