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Saturday 6 July 2019

Wolf

The wolf is the largest member of the dog family. It is native to the wilderness and remote areas of Eurasia and North America.

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In North America it is known as the timber or gray wolf, to distinguish it from the rare red wolf of East Texas and the 'prairie wolf' or coyote.

WOLVES IN HISTORY 

According to legend, the city of Rome and the Roman kingdom was founded on April 21, 753 BC by twins Romulus and Remus, who were raised by a wolf.

For centuries the wolf has been depicted as a symbol of fighting prowess, courage, and endurance. Beowulf, the legendary Anglo-Saxon hero, named himself after the wolf, and North American Indians used the name for their most powerful warriors.

Polychrome cave painting of a gray wolf, Font-de-Gaume, France

Wolf packs could be found in all the forests of Europe in medieval times. During the harsh winter of 1450, a pack of hungry wolves managed to enter Paris and roamed the city's streets. They ate 40 people.

The last wolf in Great Britain was killed in Scotland, in 1743. Wolves were extinct in England by 1500.

German and Russian troops had to call a temporary truce in modern Lithuania/Belarus during World War I in order to launch a joint attack against a pack of wolves that constantly raided them.. "Poison, rifle fire, hand grenades and even machine guns were tried to no avail." Wolves even attacked them in the trenches, making effective battle impossible.

ANATOMY 

The wolf is the largest extant member of the Canidae family, with males averaging 43–45 kg (95–99 lb) and females 36–38.5 kg (79–85 lb).

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Wolf weight and size can vary greatly worldwide, tending to increase proportionally with latitude as predicted by Bergmann's rule, with the large wolves of Alaska and Canada sometimes weighing 3–6 times more than their Middle Eastern and South Asian cousins.

The heaviest wolf recorded weighed 86 kilograms (190 lb. It was killed after World War II in Ukraine's Poltavskij Region.

The heaviest recorded gray wolf in North America was killed on 70 Mile River in east-central Alaska on July 12, 1939 and weighed 79.4 kilograms (175 lb).

Arctic wolves are smaller than other wolves. They are 3 feet (0.91 m) tall when they're adults.

Wolves have fur made up of two layers. The top layer is resistant to dirt, and the underlayer is water resistant.

The color of the wolf's fur can be any combination of grey, white, red, brown, and black. Studies have shown that in 2007 they have found 23 red gray wolves.

The maned wolf's urine smells so much like marijuana it caused police at the Rotterdam Zoo to go on the hunt for cannabis smokers.

BEHAVIOR

A hungry wolf can eat 20 pounds of meat in a single meal, which is the same as a human eating one hundred hamburgers.

There is a group of wolves in British Columbia aptly called the "sea wolves" that gets 90% of its food from the sea, and will even swim up to 8 miles to reach islands for food. They have distinct DNA that sets them apart from interior wolves.

When howling together, wolves harmonize rather than howl the same note, creating the illusion of there being more wolves than there are.

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Wolves run on their toes, it helps them to stop, turn quickly and also prevent their paws from wearing down.

When male and female wolves mate, they usually stay together for life. They are devoted parents and maintain sophisticated family ties.

FUN WOLF FACTS

Minnesota is the only state in the contiguous USA that has always held a viable gray wolf population.

The Custer Wolf, a North American gray wolf referred to as the "master criminal of the animal world", killed livestock worth almost $300,000 today.

The Italian Wolf is considered the national animal of Italy.


Wolf in Sheep's Clothing is a phrase we use of a person who pretends to be meek and mild but in fact is vicious, or of someone who poses as a friend but in reality is an enemy. The figure of speech comes from the passage in the Gospels in which Jesus warned his followers to "beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are savage wolves" (Matthew. 7.15). The warning has been interpreted to refer to deceitful heretical teachers who misled the people by attractively misrepresenting the authoritative message.

Sources Europress Family Encyclopedia, Compton's Encyclopedia

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