Question: what can you tell me about wolves?
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@Dustin
how is a pack formed?-
Packs are formed from males being cast out, and when they reach maturity they will attempt to take over another area, which means taking on the alpha males of those packs. By dominating, females will join their pack if they have a sufficient territory.
Also males will join packs but as subordinate animals, but it is all about fighting and territory.
Females will stay within the pack.
There is a great documentary about the wolves in yellowstone, i think it is called Black wolf or something
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what is the scientific name for domesticated dogs? (and feral dogs if they have a different name)
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Hi Shadycactus6,
Domesticated dogs are actually considered to be one of the subspecies of Canis lupus, and their scientific name is Canis lupus familiaris. I think feral dogs are included within this subspecies. Dingos are another subspecies, Canis lupus dingo. You can read more about the classification of wolves and dogs here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subspecies_of_Canis_lupus
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shadycactus6
Hi Shadycactus,
What would you like to know?
Wolves are great hunters, using stamina to chase their prey down.
Wolves are a natural part of the ecosystem. In Yellowstone national park, wolves were hunted and with a lower number of wolves the herbivores that they feed on exploded in numbers. The Caribou, a deer like animal, because of its huge numbers, then caused massive damage to the vegetation. So in recent years, wolves have been reintroduced to Yellowstone and a better hunting regime implemented, the ecosystem is now in repair.
Wolves are cool.
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Hi Shadycactus6,
Wolves are pretty cool! What would you like to know about them?
I’ll just add some things to what Dustin has written.
The scientific name for wolves is Canis lupus, and they are sometimes known as the grey wolf or the common wolf. There are several sub-species of wolves, and all modern-day dogs evolved from the wolf. Supposedly, wolves and dogs can breed to produce offspring that are also fertile. The gestation period for wolves (the time that females are pregnant for) is about 62-75 days. Wolves usually live in groups called packs, and they usually mate for life. Wolves are revered by several cultures, and there are several folklores involving them – one of these in the past used to be that drinking wolf milk would help women to have healthy babies! (I heard this in a documentary about an Austrian princess who people thought was a vampire. She had been unable to have children when she was younger, so she drank wolf milk for several years, and then eventually she had a child at the age of 41 – having a child at this age was extremely uncommon in those times, so people thought there was something very strange about her!)
There have also been documented cases of lost children being raised by wolves, alongside their own pups.
You can read more about wolves at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolves.
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Looks like Dustin and Arti covered this so I’ll move on.
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