Taxonomy

Basic Wolf Structure

The gray wolf has very unique characteristics as well the same characteristics as your common house hold domesticated dog. Wolves vary in size and weight. Depending on the gender male or female, the wolf can be up to 32 inches tall and 6.1 feet from nose to tail. Adult males can weigh from 110-160 pounds while females can weigh up to 80-115 pounds. Wolves have a specific set of canines developed over time to fit there environment. A wolf has a total of forty two teeth; twelve incisors, four canines, sixteen pre molars, and ten carnassials and molars. A wolfs jaw has the crushing power of 1,500 (lbs/square inch), compared to 740 (lbs/square inch) for a German Shepherd, Giving the wolf more power to shred into the tough hide of their prey, sawing through bone and fat.

Wolves have a keen sense of hearing. Wolves rely on the sense of smell, hearing and taste to survive. Wolves can hear up to six miles in the forest and about ten miles in the open. Wolves also have a keen sense of sight. A wolf’s eye color varies between yellow-amber and deep orange. Sometimes in rare cases a wolf will have blue eyes, but normally they change to an orange or yellow amber as they mature. Wolves rely on sight just as equally as there hearing. A wolf can sense the slightest movements within trees or underbrush, allowing a huge hunting advantage. Being primary predators, a wolfs eyes are located on the front of their heads and have little less then 180 degree vision unlike their prey which often have 300 degree vision.

Eyes:

• When wolves are born, they have blue eyes. When they reach about 12 weeks old, there eye colors change as they mature. These colors vary between: Blue, Yellow, Orange, deep amber and sometimes green.

Height/Width:
Height: 32 inches tall
Length: 61 feet from nose to tail
Weight: Males can weight up to 110-160 pounds. Females can weigh up to 80-115 pounds.

Teeth

• How Many Teeth: 22 twelve incisors, four canines, sixteen pre molars, and ten carnassials and molarsSize: 1-inch (2.54 centimeters) long, strong, sharp, and slightly curved. Teeth Pressure: A wolf has the crushing power of 1,500 (lbs/square inch), compared to 740 (lbs/square inch) for a German Shepherd."

Paw structure

• All members of the canine family, and the feline family too, are digitigrade, walking upon just their toe tips. The front feet of a wolf are exceptionally large. This is of great advantage to the wolf when it runs upon snow, as it allows greater weight distribution and more support to prevent the animal from sinking in as deeply when the snow is soft.

Sight

• Wolves have a keen sense of sight, to depict certain movements. Wolves have a 180 degree focus of sight, where their prey can have up to 300 degree sight.

Hearing

• Next to scent, is hearing. An acute sight is very important to a wolf's daily life. Wolves have long, fluffy ears that can pick up sounds from six miles away in the forest and ten miles in the open. A wolf can hear a frequency up to 25khz.

Taste

• Wolves much like all animals have different taste receptors. A wolf has the common salty, bitter, sweet and acidic taste buds. The sweetness receptivity would be adaptive use to wolves, as sweet berries and other fruits do play a minor role in their daily diet.

Smell

• 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, however the area receptive to smell in a wolf nose is 14 times greater than that of a human. 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. An experiment was performed at one time with covered trays of food to test the relative senses of smell between wolves and dogs. What required only five minutes for the wolves to determine which tray contained food took domestic dogs over an hour to discover.