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The wolf (Canis lupus; [b] pl.: wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus have been recognized, including the dog and dingo , though grey wolves, as popularly understood, only comprise naturally-occurring wild subspecies.
The Eurasian wolf (Canis lupus lupus), also known as the common wolf, [3] is a subspecies of grey wolf native to Europe and Asia. It was once widespread throughout Eurasia prior to the Middle Ages . Aside from an extensive paleontological record, Indo-European languages typically have several words for "wolf", thus attesting to the animal's ...
The Alexander Archipelago wolf (Canis lupus ligoni), also known as the Islands wolf, [4] is a subspecies of the gray wolf.The coastal wolves of southeast Alaska inhabit the area that includes the Alexander Archipelago, its islands, and a narrow strip of rugged coastline that is biologically isolated from the rest of North America by the Coast Mountains.
Northwestern wolves are one of the largest subspecies of wolves. In British Columbia, Canada, five adult females averaged 42.5 kg or 93.6 lbs with a range of 85 lbs to 100 lbs (38.6 - 45.4 kg) and ten adult males averaged 112.2 lbs or 51.7 kg with a range of 105 lbs to 135 lbs (47.6 - 61.2 kg), with a weight range for all adults of 38.6 kg to 61.2 kg (85 – 135 lbs). [9]
Mongolian wolf in Dalian Forest Zoo, northern China. Gray described the type specimen from Chinese Tartary as follows: . The fur fulvous, on the back longer, rigid, with intermixed black and gray hairs; the throat, chest, belly, and inside of the legs pure white; head pale gray-brown; forehead grizzled with short black and gray hairs.
In 2021, a mitochondrial DNA analysis of North American wolf-like canines indicates that the extinct Late Pleistocene Beringian wolf was the ancestor of the southern wolf clade, which includes the Mexican wolf and the Great Plains wolf. The Mexican wolf is the most ancestral of the gray wolves that live in North America today.
The tundra wolf (Canis lupus albus), also known as the Turukhan wolf, [3] is a subspecies of grey wolf native to Eurasia's tundra and forest-tundra zones from Finland to the Kamchatka Peninsula. [3] It was first described in 1792 by Robert Kerr , who described it as living around the Yenisei , and of having a highly valued pelt.
True members of Canis, namely the gray wolf and coyote, likely only arrived in the New World during the Late Pleistocene, where their dietary flexibility and/or ability to hybridize with other canids allowed them to survive the Quaternary extinction event, unlike the dire wolf. [14] Xenocyon (strange wolf) is an extinct subgenus of Canis. [15]