Post by fmisc on Feb 21, 2009 3:43:10 GMT
Wolf
The wolf is the largest member of the dog family, averaging from 80 to 100 pounds. Wolves often eat animals much larger than themselves, including moose, big-horn sheep, musk oxen, deer, and elk. They also eat smaller animals such as beavers, rabbits, squirrels, ducks, geese, and other birds, and on some rare occasions they might eat mice. Currently wolves inhabit only North America and Western Europe. Bears are much stronger and can easily kill wolves.
A wolf family is called a pack. Most wolf packs are a close-knit family with a mother, father, pups, youngsters and adult offspring.
It was used to be thought that wolves gained alpha rank by fighting for dominace. However now it is known that the alpha and alpha female gain their ranks by becoming parents of the pack. By having pups and keeping them in order.
Pups
A group of baby wolves born at the same time is called a litter. There are five to fourteen cubs in a litter, but six is the average. Wolf babies are blind and deaf at birth, with fine wooly hair and floppy ears. They weigh about one pound. The babies open their eyes about two weeks after birth and they can hear after about three weeks. The eyes are blue at first but change to yellow later on. The cubs can walk by two weeks of age. A week later, they come out of the den for the first time and play at the entrance. Wolf parents are among the best animal parents in the world, and the cubs get a lot of loving care from their parents, including feeding, cleaning and protection. The mother wolf stays close to the pups. She usually doesn't have to leave the babies to look for food because the father and other family members bring the food to her. In fact, sometimes wolves will carry food more than twenty miles back to the den for their pups.
Pup mortality ranges from 30% to 60%. Pups die from diseases, malnutrition and starvation, life in the wild can be difficult. Wolves being very social animals are known to bury the dead pups.
Most wolf pups are born with blue eyes, which gradually change to a yellow-gold color by eight to sixteen weeks, though sometimes their eyes can change color much later. Occasionally, a mature wolf will be found with blue eyes.
Wolf pups love to play. They chase each other and roll around the way dog puppies do. Many of their games appear to be a sort of practice for the things they will do as adult wolves. Pups have been observed playing with "toys" like bones, feathers or the skins of dead animals. They "kill" the toys over and over again and carry them around as "trophies." As they get bigger, they begin to hunt small animals, like rabbits. This is all good practice for the day they join the pack for their first real hunt for large animals.
10 - 13 days: the eyes open
3 weeks: the milk teeth appear, they start to explore the den
4 - 5 weeks: short trips outside the den, begin to eat meat
6 weeks: moving up to a mile from the den (with adult wolf)
6 - 8 weeks: pups are weaned, traveling to rendezvous site.
12 weeks: begin to travel with the pack on hunts (with adult wolves)
15 - 28 weeks: milk teeth are replaced
7 - 8 months: begin to hunt with the pack
Dominance/Submission
Wolf packs have a special way to keep members of the family from fighting each other. It's called a dominance order. Every member of the pack has a place, or rank, within this order. When a wolf with a higher rank has a disagreement with a wolf of a lower rank, the lower-ranking wolf usually gives up without fighting. This is very important, because wolves are powerful animals with sharp teeth. If they didn't have a way of preventing fights, they could hurt each other badly.
Very early in life, young wolves may start to establish a dominance order among themselves. When they are only about 30 days old, the pups in a litter may start fighting with each other. They may fight every day for a number of days. In the end, one of the pups will roll over on its back to show that it gives up, and the other raises its tail to show dominance.
Eyesight
Wolves have relatively poor frontal vision. They may not be able to recognize members of their own pack beyond 100 to 150 feet. This is possibly one reason why the wolf mask accents their facial features and ears so greatly.
Their myopia evidently stems from the absence of the fovea centralis, the tiny pit at the back, center of the retina which, in humans, primates and some other animals provides the point of sharpest vision.
Just how clearly a wolf sees when looking directly at an object is, of course, impossible to know, but it seems evident that beyond a short distance their vision must be somewhat blurred, rather like that of a photograph taken with a wide-open lens at a slow shutter speed, as opposed to an exposure taken with the smallest lens aperture at a fast speed.
Nevertheless, wolves can see shapes and, especially, movement over long distances, and their peripheral vision is extremely accurate. They are able to detect even the slightest movements of very small animals, such as a mosquito, at a distance of more than ten feet and the movement of larger animals at considerable distances.
There is some controversy as to whether wolves see in color or black and white. Regardless, it is unlikely that they see the various hues of the spectrum as humans see them, because the physical makeup of the eye is different.
Nighttime vision for wolves is many times better than human vision in the day or night. Wolves can actually see much better and even much more clearly at night.
Hearing
Wolves have incredibly good hearing and can hear sounds up to six miles away, including some high-pitched sounds that even a human can't hear, in the range where bats and porpoises produce sound. Even when it sleeps, a wolf's ears stand straight up so it can catch sounds made by other animals at all times. This helps the wolf catch prey, and lets it know when danger is near.
Their large, pointed ears act like big scoops to catch lots of sound. Unlike humans, wolves can easily tell what direction sound is coming from by turning their ears from side to side. The direction the ears are pointing when the sound is loudest tells the wolf which direction the sound is coming from, which can help them locate rodents under a snowpack.
Hunting
When a wolf pack hunts, the members of the pack work together as a team. The pack combines the strength of many wolves, and this makes it possible for them to hunt some very large animals. In fact, wolf packs seem to prefer hunting large animals.
In order to capture their prey, wolves often surround the prey, often hiding behind bushes, and then go in for the kill. In another common hunting technique, the wolves chase the prey in single file with the front wolf occasionally moving to the back, to let the "next in line" lead the way. This single file technique is particularly helpful in the snow when the first wolf acts as a "snowplow" leaving footprints that each wolf will follow in.
Wolves are not always successful at catching the prey they go after. In fact, many more animals escape than are caught. If the prey shows that it can put up a good fight, the wolves will often let it go. After a kill, wolves eat a lot of the meat, as much as 20 pounds. If any meat is left, the wolves may come back later to eat it. During times when food is plenty wolves will be seen meat drunk. Their bellies filled to the max with meat- sitting and sleeping with eachother, just digesting their food.
Wolves, like other predators, are meat-eaters and have very short digestive tracts. Animal protein doesn't take very long to digest, but breaking down plant protein can be very difficult. Other animals such as cows and deer have multi-chambered stomachs and are built for digesting plants much better.
Wolves are known to go 14 days without food without getting sick or weak.
Legs and Feet / Running
There are five toes on a wolf's front paws and only four on the rear paws. Their paws can be up to 5 1/4" long. Thick, rugged, and blocky when the toes are together, the foot can also sprawl, allowing the toes to grasp rocks, logs, and other uneven or steep surfaces. When walking, the wolf holds its foot in the blocky fashion, reducing area and friction. However, during tricky maneuvering, the toes can spread far apart, much increasing the surface and friction. In order to walk better in the snow, one wolf will make the initial trail and all other wolves will follow by stepping in the original footprints. Wolves run on their toes. (not the paws, the very toes!) This lengthens their legs and makes it possible for them to run faster - up to 40 miles per hour, in fact.
Marking Territory
Each family pack has a hunting territory of its own, and the pack wanders around the territory looking for prey. They sometimes travel 40 to 60 miles a day looking for food. But most of the time they don't have to go that far before they find something. By having territories, wolves also spend less time fighting other packs, which gives them more time to raise young and hunt for food. Territory sizes range from 50 to 150 square miles or more. Wolves leave fresh scent posts, or messages, marking the boundaries of its territories, by urinating.
Wolves live in the wilderness as far away from people as possible. Wolves also have dens which are at the end of tunnels, but the dens are reserved only for the babies.
A wolf's territory ranges from 50 to 150 square miles. They leave fresh scent posts, or messages, marking the boundaries of their territory by urinating.
Mating
As breeding season approaches, members of the alpha pair become increasingly friendly to each other. They sleep closer and closer together, and the male tends to stay close to the female as they travel. Both alphas threaten competitors from within the pack with stares, growls, and grimaces. Meanwhile, male and female groom each other, place forepaws over the other's shoulders, and touch each other more and more.
Often, when about to copulate, individual mated pairs move out of the main pack for a few days. This is probably to avoid interference from other pack members. Sometimes pack associates try to get in on the mating, or they harass the mated pair during copulation. Wolves copulate like dogs, the male mounting the female from behind.
With the tense period of mating over, the pack animals' former affability and friendliness toward one another resumes. Now their attentions turn back to the task of selecting and preparing a den site for the pregnant alpha female.
Female wolves have complex courtship, pair-bonding, and reproductive behavior as well as complex hormonal characteristics. They are capable of a reproductive state called "pseudopregnancy." Apparently, once a female matures sexually, she either becomes pregnant or pseudopregnant each year. During pseudopregnancy, the wolf's hormonal state is precisely the same as if the animal were pregnant even though she is not. This includes the ability to produce milk and possibly even to nurse the offspring of another female.
The period from conception to birth is about sixty-three days. During that time the pack will clean out an old traditional den or find a new location and help the alpha female dig a new one. Usually, the site will be higher than the surrounding ground, allowing the pack to watch over a large area. The site will also be near water, for the female will rarely travel far from her den after her pups are born, at least until they are a couple months old.
The entrance to the den is usually quite small, allowing passage to only the pregnant female. The passageway may extend from a few feet deep to as far back as twenty feet. At the end will be a hollowed-out area barely larger than the tunnel itself. It is here the expectant mother will bear her young.
No wolf will enter or watch the alpha give birth. If attempted both alphas will snarl or growl the other away. Even the alpha male is not welcomed by the alpha female during this time. Only after it ends.
Nose
The wolf's sense of smell is about 100 times better than a human's. It uses its sense of smell more than anything else to find prey, with the ability to smell prey before it can see it, more than a mile away if the wind is right. A wolf's nose can smell things that your nose can't. Like your nose, the inside of a wolf's nose contains moist surfaces that "catch" smells in the air. The wolf's nose has about five times more surface area than yours does, so it can catch more smells from the air than you can. It can even sense the presence of an animal three days after it's gone! The nose itself is not five times larger than a human¯ nose. For all the extra smelling surface to fit inside, it must be wrapped and folded many times.
Prey
Wolves hunt many different kinds of animals, and some of their prey is small. Beavers are an important source of food when larger prey is not available. Some wolves hunt rabbits and squirrels. Others chase ducks, geese, and other birds. When prey is really hard to find, wolves may eat mice. The smaller prey may be important when raising pups. This is because younger and less experienced wolves in the pack can hunt smaller prey and help feed themselves and the pups when food demand is especially high. When they can get it, wolves prefer larger prey. They may hunt deer, elk, or mountain goats. Most of these animals are a good deal larger than wolves, and they can be hard to catch. They can often run fast, and some of them are excellent mountain climbers. Some animals that wolves hunt may be well defended against attack. Deer and elk have hard hooves that can crack a wolf's bones. Big-horn sheep and musk oxen are very strong and aggressive.
Perhaps the favorite prey of wolves is the moose. And these animals can be very big. An average male moose weighs over 1,000 pounds. It may stand over 6 1/2 feet tall at the shoulder. The hooves of a moose can kill a wolf. For this reason, wolves try to find a moose that has been weakened by sickness - or one that is bogged down in deep snow. Wolves don't always catch the prey they go after. In fact, many more animals escape than are caught. Wolves can achieve speeds above 30 miles per hour, but if they can't capture running prey within about 1,000 yards, they usually abandon the chase.
Ranks and Roles
Alpha - The leaders of a wolf pack are the alpha male and the alpha female, often distinguishable by their raised tails. Being parents of most of the other pack members, the alpha pair hold the allegiance of the rest of the pack. They maintain this allegiance by continually asserting themselves over their offspring from birth through maturation. For example, on small kills, yearling and other subordinate pack members can only feed by deferring to the alpha pair and often begging from them. Alpha animals are usually mature adults, and they can hold their alpha position for as long as eight years. When traveling, the alpha male usually heads the wolf pack and chooses the route, but the alpha female is close to him in line.
Beta - A beta male lowers his head and tail when around the alpha pair to let them know he will obey them.
Subordinate - These are usually young animals, but occasionally are former alphas who have lost their positions. If they remain with the pack, subordinates play a strong and important role in helping care for and feed the pups. An unknowing observer watching subordinates around a den would be unable to distinguish their behavior from that of the actual parents. At times, the nurturing by these subordinate helpers may even allow more pups to survive.
Omega or Scapegoat - In large packs of wolves, there is often a lowest-ranking member who becomes the focus of the pack's social aggression. Referred to by behaviorists as the "omega" wolf, this animal seems to be a scapegoat and may actually become an outright outcast. This may be part of the process by which pack members disperse and become independent, rather than remain at the bottom of the pecking order or on the fringes of the pack. A scapegoat keeps its fur and ears flattened, its body close to the ground and its tail often tucked between its legs.
Lone Wolf - A young adult which has left the pack. It may find a new, suitable place to live and mate.
Teeth
Out of the wolf's forty-two teeth, forty help the wolf in securing its prey. There are six incisors on the top and six on the bottom, two canines on the top and two on the bottom, eight premolars on the top and eight on the bottom, and four molars on the top and four on the bottom. The largest teeth are the canines, or fangs, which may reach two and a quarter inches in total length, including the portion imbedded in the jaw. These are the tools that help the wolf hold onto its prey. The cutting and chewing is done by the carnassials, or flesh teeth - the fourth upper premolar and the first lower molar. These specialized teeth are much like a pair of self-sharpening shears and function well in cutting tendons and tough flesh. The massive molars help crush bones.
There have been some images shown where wolves show their teeth aswell as a large portion of their gum. The more gum shown indicates how angry the wolf is.
Voice
Wolves make four types of sounds: howl, bark, whimper, and growl.
Howling is the most familiar wolf vocalization to everyone. When wolves howl together they harmonize, rather than howl the same note, creating an impression of more animals howling than actually are. Wolves don't need to stand to howl. They can howl lying down or sitting. Apparently, wolves howl to assemble the pack, especially before and after the hunt; to pass on an alarm, especially at the den site; to locate each other in a storm or in unfamiliar territory; and to communicate across great distances. There is no evidence that wolves howl at the moon, or more frequently during a full moon.
Wolves only infrequently bark, and it is a quiet "woof" more often than a dog -type bark. They do not bark continuously like dogs but woof a few times and then retreat, as for example when a stranger approaches the den. Barks reported from the field are associated with a pack's being surprised at its den and an animal, usually the female, rising to bark a warning.
Growling is heard during food challenges and, like the bark, is part of threat behavior or an assertion of rights in some social context. Growling is more common among pups when they're playing. Pups also growl when they jerk at the ruff of a reclining adult, and comically will even try to growl adults off a piece of food. Another type of growl is a high-pitched one that begins to sound like a whine and often precedes a snapping lunge at another wolf.
Perhaps the most interesting sounds are the whines and high-pitched social squeaks associated with greeting, feeding the pups, play, pen pacing and other situations of anxiety, curiosity, and inquiry. They are the sounds of intimacy.
__________________________
I'll add more as I remember them. Uhm... Just be glad I didn't include population facts and people and wolf myths. xD If you don't want to read it all, I marked all the important ones by underlining them. Or things I find important to role playing.
Let me know if I should add anything! Haha!
*Update I added info in the teeth section.
The wolf is the largest member of the dog family, averaging from 80 to 100 pounds. Wolves often eat animals much larger than themselves, including moose, big-horn sheep, musk oxen, deer, and elk. They also eat smaller animals such as beavers, rabbits, squirrels, ducks, geese, and other birds, and on some rare occasions they might eat mice. Currently wolves inhabit only North America and Western Europe. Bears are much stronger and can easily kill wolves.
A wolf family is called a pack. Most wolf packs are a close-knit family with a mother, father, pups, youngsters and adult offspring.
It was used to be thought that wolves gained alpha rank by fighting for dominace. However now it is known that the alpha and alpha female gain their ranks by becoming parents of the pack. By having pups and keeping them in order.
Pups
A group of baby wolves born at the same time is called a litter. There are five to fourteen cubs in a litter, but six is the average. Wolf babies are blind and deaf at birth, with fine wooly hair and floppy ears. They weigh about one pound. The babies open their eyes about two weeks after birth and they can hear after about three weeks. The eyes are blue at first but change to yellow later on. The cubs can walk by two weeks of age. A week later, they come out of the den for the first time and play at the entrance. Wolf parents are among the best animal parents in the world, and the cubs get a lot of loving care from their parents, including feeding, cleaning and protection. The mother wolf stays close to the pups. She usually doesn't have to leave the babies to look for food because the father and other family members bring the food to her. In fact, sometimes wolves will carry food more than twenty miles back to the den for their pups.
Pup mortality ranges from 30% to 60%. Pups die from diseases, malnutrition and starvation, life in the wild can be difficult. Wolves being very social animals are known to bury the dead pups.
Most wolf pups are born with blue eyes, which gradually change to a yellow-gold color by eight to sixteen weeks, though sometimes their eyes can change color much later. Occasionally, a mature wolf will be found with blue eyes.
Wolf pups love to play. They chase each other and roll around the way dog puppies do. Many of their games appear to be a sort of practice for the things they will do as adult wolves. Pups have been observed playing with "toys" like bones, feathers or the skins of dead animals. They "kill" the toys over and over again and carry them around as "trophies." As they get bigger, they begin to hunt small animals, like rabbits. This is all good practice for the day they join the pack for their first real hunt for large animals.
10 - 13 days: the eyes open
3 weeks: the milk teeth appear, they start to explore the den
4 - 5 weeks: short trips outside the den, begin to eat meat
6 weeks: moving up to a mile from the den (with adult wolf)
6 - 8 weeks: pups are weaned, traveling to rendezvous site.
12 weeks: begin to travel with the pack on hunts (with adult wolves)
15 - 28 weeks: milk teeth are replaced
7 - 8 months: begin to hunt with the pack
Dominance/Submission
Wolf packs have a special way to keep members of the family from fighting each other. It's called a dominance order. Every member of the pack has a place, or rank, within this order. When a wolf with a higher rank has a disagreement with a wolf of a lower rank, the lower-ranking wolf usually gives up without fighting. This is very important, because wolves are powerful animals with sharp teeth. If they didn't have a way of preventing fights, they could hurt each other badly.
Very early in life, young wolves may start to establish a dominance order among themselves. When they are only about 30 days old, the pups in a litter may start fighting with each other. They may fight every day for a number of days. In the end, one of the pups will roll over on its back to show that it gives up, and the other raises its tail to show dominance.
Eyesight
Wolves have relatively poor frontal vision. They may not be able to recognize members of their own pack beyond 100 to 150 feet. This is possibly one reason why the wolf mask accents their facial features and ears so greatly.
Their myopia evidently stems from the absence of the fovea centralis, the tiny pit at the back, center of the retina which, in humans, primates and some other animals provides the point of sharpest vision.
Just how clearly a wolf sees when looking directly at an object is, of course, impossible to know, but it seems evident that beyond a short distance their vision must be somewhat blurred, rather like that of a photograph taken with a wide-open lens at a slow shutter speed, as opposed to an exposure taken with the smallest lens aperture at a fast speed.
Nevertheless, wolves can see shapes and, especially, movement over long distances, and their peripheral vision is extremely accurate. They are able to detect even the slightest movements of very small animals, such as a mosquito, at a distance of more than ten feet and the movement of larger animals at considerable distances.
There is some controversy as to whether wolves see in color or black and white. Regardless, it is unlikely that they see the various hues of the spectrum as humans see them, because the physical makeup of the eye is different.
Nighttime vision for wolves is many times better than human vision in the day or night. Wolves can actually see much better and even much more clearly at night.
Hearing
Wolves have incredibly good hearing and can hear sounds up to six miles away, including some high-pitched sounds that even a human can't hear, in the range where bats and porpoises produce sound. Even when it sleeps, a wolf's ears stand straight up so it can catch sounds made by other animals at all times. This helps the wolf catch prey, and lets it know when danger is near.
Their large, pointed ears act like big scoops to catch lots of sound. Unlike humans, wolves can easily tell what direction sound is coming from by turning their ears from side to side. The direction the ears are pointing when the sound is loudest tells the wolf which direction the sound is coming from, which can help them locate rodents under a snowpack.
Hunting
When a wolf pack hunts, the members of the pack work together as a team. The pack combines the strength of many wolves, and this makes it possible for them to hunt some very large animals. In fact, wolf packs seem to prefer hunting large animals.
In order to capture their prey, wolves often surround the prey, often hiding behind bushes, and then go in for the kill. In another common hunting technique, the wolves chase the prey in single file with the front wolf occasionally moving to the back, to let the "next in line" lead the way. This single file technique is particularly helpful in the snow when the first wolf acts as a "snowplow" leaving footprints that each wolf will follow in.
Wolves are not always successful at catching the prey they go after. In fact, many more animals escape than are caught. If the prey shows that it can put up a good fight, the wolves will often let it go. After a kill, wolves eat a lot of the meat, as much as 20 pounds. If any meat is left, the wolves may come back later to eat it. During times when food is plenty wolves will be seen meat drunk. Their bellies filled to the max with meat- sitting and sleeping with eachother, just digesting their food.
Wolves, like other predators, are meat-eaters and have very short digestive tracts. Animal protein doesn't take very long to digest, but breaking down plant protein can be very difficult. Other animals such as cows and deer have multi-chambered stomachs and are built for digesting plants much better.
Wolves are known to go 14 days without food without getting sick or weak.
Legs and Feet / Running
There are five toes on a wolf's front paws and only four on the rear paws. Their paws can be up to 5 1/4" long. Thick, rugged, and blocky when the toes are together, the foot can also sprawl, allowing the toes to grasp rocks, logs, and other uneven or steep surfaces. When walking, the wolf holds its foot in the blocky fashion, reducing area and friction. However, during tricky maneuvering, the toes can spread far apart, much increasing the surface and friction. In order to walk better in the snow, one wolf will make the initial trail and all other wolves will follow by stepping in the original footprints. Wolves run on their toes. (not the paws, the very toes!) This lengthens their legs and makes it possible for them to run faster - up to 40 miles per hour, in fact.
Marking Territory
Each family pack has a hunting territory of its own, and the pack wanders around the territory looking for prey. They sometimes travel 40 to 60 miles a day looking for food. But most of the time they don't have to go that far before they find something. By having territories, wolves also spend less time fighting other packs, which gives them more time to raise young and hunt for food. Territory sizes range from 50 to 150 square miles or more. Wolves leave fresh scent posts, or messages, marking the boundaries of its territories, by urinating.
Wolves live in the wilderness as far away from people as possible. Wolves also have dens which are at the end of tunnels, but the dens are reserved only for the babies.
A wolf's territory ranges from 50 to 150 square miles. They leave fresh scent posts, or messages, marking the boundaries of their territory by urinating.
Mating
As breeding season approaches, members of the alpha pair become increasingly friendly to each other. They sleep closer and closer together, and the male tends to stay close to the female as they travel. Both alphas threaten competitors from within the pack with stares, growls, and grimaces. Meanwhile, male and female groom each other, place forepaws over the other's shoulders, and touch each other more and more.
Often, when about to copulate, individual mated pairs move out of the main pack for a few days. This is probably to avoid interference from other pack members. Sometimes pack associates try to get in on the mating, or they harass the mated pair during copulation. Wolves copulate like dogs, the male mounting the female from behind.
With the tense period of mating over, the pack animals' former affability and friendliness toward one another resumes. Now their attentions turn back to the task of selecting and preparing a den site for the pregnant alpha female.
Female wolves have complex courtship, pair-bonding, and reproductive behavior as well as complex hormonal characteristics. They are capable of a reproductive state called "pseudopregnancy." Apparently, once a female matures sexually, she either becomes pregnant or pseudopregnant each year. During pseudopregnancy, the wolf's hormonal state is precisely the same as if the animal were pregnant even though she is not. This includes the ability to produce milk and possibly even to nurse the offspring of another female.
The period from conception to birth is about sixty-three days. During that time the pack will clean out an old traditional den or find a new location and help the alpha female dig a new one. Usually, the site will be higher than the surrounding ground, allowing the pack to watch over a large area. The site will also be near water, for the female will rarely travel far from her den after her pups are born, at least until they are a couple months old.
The entrance to the den is usually quite small, allowing passage to only the pregnant female. The passageway may extend from a few feet deep to as far back as twenty feet. At the end will be a hollowed-out area barely larger than the tunnel itself. It is here the expectant mother will bear her young.
No wolf will enter or watch the alpha give birth. If attempted both alphas will snarl or growl the other away. Even the alpha male is not welcomed by the alpha female during this time. Only after it ends.
Nose
The wolf's sense of smell is about 100 times better than a human's. It uses its sense of smell more than anything else to find prey, with the ability to smell prey before it can see it, more than a mile away if the wind is right. A wolf's nose can smell things that your nose can't. Like your nose, the inside of a wolf's nose contains moist surfaces that "catch" smells in the air. The wolf's nose has about five times more surface area than yours does, so it can catch more smells from the air than you can. It can even sense the presence of an animal three days after it's gone! The nose itself is not five times larger than a human¯ nose. For all the extra smelling surface to fit inside, it must be wrapped and folded many times.
Prey
Wolves hunt many different kinds of animals, and some of their prey is small. Beavers are an important source of food when larger prey is not available. Some wolves hunt rabbits and squirrels. Others chase ducks, geese, and other birds. When prey is really hard to find, wolves may eat mice. The smaller prey may be important when raising pups. This is because younger and less experienced wolves in the pack can hunt smaller prey and help feed themselves and the pups when food demand is especially high. When they can get it, wolves prefer larger prey. They may hunt deer, elk, or mountain goats. Most of these animals are a good deal larger than wolves, and they can be hard to catch. They can often run fast, and some of them are excellent mountain climbers. Some animals that wolves hunt may be well defended against attack. Deer and elk have hard hooves that can crack a wolf's bones. Big-horn sheep and musk oxen are very strong and aggressive.
Perhaps the favorite prey of wolves is the moose. And these animals can be very big. An average male moose weighs over 1,000 pounds. It may stand over 6 1/2 feet tall at the shoulder. The hooves of a moose can kill a wolf. For this reason, wolves try to find a moose that has been weakened by sickness - or one that is bogged down in deep snow. Wolves don't always catch the prey they go after. In fact, many more animals escape than are caught. Wolves can achieve speeds above 30 miles per hour, but if they can't capture running prey within about 1,000 yards, they usually abandon the chase.
Ranks and Roles
Alpha - The leaders of a wolf pack are the alpha male and the alpha female, often distinguishable by their raised tails. Being parents of most of the other pack members, the alpha pair hold the allegiance of the rest of the pack. They maintain this allegiance by continually asserting themselves over their offspring from birth through maturation. For example, on small kills, yearling and other subordinate pack members can only feed by deferring to the alpha pair and often begging from them. Alpha animals are usually mature adults, and they can hold their alpha position for as long as eight years. When traveling, the alpha male usually heads the wolf pack and chooses the route, but the alpha female is close to him in line.
Beta - A beta male lowers his head and tail when around the alpha pair to let them know he will obey them.
Subordinate - These are usually young animals, but occasionally are former alphas who have lost their positions. If they remain with the pack, subordinates play a strong and important role in helping care for and feed the pups. An unknowing observer watching subordinates around a den would be unable to distinguish their behavior from that of the actual parents. At times, the nurturing by these subordinate helpers may even allow more pups to survive.
Omega or Scapegoat - In large packs of wolves, there is often a lowest-ranking member who becomes the focus of the pack's social aggression. Referred to by behaviorists as the "omega" wolf, this animal seems to be a scapegoat and may actually become an outright outcast. This may be part of the process by which pack members disperse and become independent, rather than remain at the bottom of the pecking order or on the fringes of the pack. A scapegoat keeps its fur and ears flattened, its body close to the ground and its tail often tucked between its legs.
Lone Wolf - A young adult which has left the pack. It may find a new, suitable place to live and mate.
Teeth
Out of the wolf's forty-two teeth, forty help the wolf in securing its prey. There are six incisors on the top and six on the bottom, two canines on the top and two on the bottom, eight premolars on the top and eight on the bottom, and four molars on the top and four on the bottom. The largest teeth are the canines, or fangs, which may reach two and a quarter inches in total length, including the portion imbedded in the jaw. These are the tools that help the wolf hold onto its prey. The cutting and chewing is done by the carnassials, or flesh teeth - the fourth upper premolar and the first lower molar. These specialized teeth are much like a pair of self-sharpening shears and function well in cutting tendons and tough flesh. The massive molars help crush bones.
There have been some images shown where wolves show their teeth aswell as a large portion of their gum. The more gum shown indicates how angry the wolf is.
Voice
Wolves make four types of sounds: howl, bark, whimper, and growl.
Howling is the most familiar wolf vocalization to everyone. When wolves howl together they harmonize, rather than howl the same note, creating an impression of more animals howling than actually are. Wolves don't need to stand to howl. They can howl lying down or sitting. Apparently, wolves howl to assemble the pack, especially before and after the hunt; to pass on an alarm, especially at the den site; to locate each other in a storm or in unfamiliar territory; and to communicate across great distances. There is no evidence that wolves howl at the moon, or more frequently during a full moon.
Wolves only infrequently bark, and it is a quiet "woof" more often than a dog -type bark. They do not bark continuously like dogs but woof a few times and then retreat, as for example when a stranger approaches the den. Barks reported from the field are associated with a pack's being surprised at its den and an animal, usually the female, rising to bark a warning.
Growling is heard during food challenges and, like the bark, is part of threat behavior or an assertion of rights in some social context. Growling is more common among pups when they're playing. Pups also growl when they jerk at the ruff of a reclining adult, and comically will even try to growl adults off a piece of food. Another type of growl is a high-pitched one that begins to sound like a whine and often precedes a snapping lunge at another wolf.
Perhaps the most interesting sounds are the whines and high-pitched social squeaks associated with greeting, feeding the pups, play, pen pacing and other situations of anxiety, curiosity, and inquiry. They are the sounds of intimacy.
__________________________
I'll add more as I remember them. Uhm... Just be glad I didn't include population facts and people and wolf myths. xD If you don't want to read it all, I marked all the important ones by underlining them. Or things I find important to role playing.
Let me know if I should add anything! Haha!
*Update I added info in the teeth section.
