Common Wolf Breeds

Gray Wolf

Description: Gray wolves are the largest of the canine, or dog family. Gray wolves generally weigh between 60 and 110 pounds, with the females slightly smaller than the males. Their average body length is 5 ½ feet from the tip of their nose to the tip of the tail, and they reach 26 to 32 inches high at the shoulder. There is a wide range of coat colors which may vary geographically. A typical gray wolf's coat is gray mixed with tan, yellow, brown, and black markings, but , some wolves may vary from solid black to buff white. Wolves have a blocky muzzle and snout and smallish, round ears. When wolves are walking or running, they often hold their tails straight out.

Range and Habitat: At one time, gray wolves were among the widest-ranging land mammal, found on every continent except for Antarctica and Australia. Red wolves, another species of wolf, were historically found in much of the southeastern United States and are currently found only in North Carolina. In North America, gray wolves are currently found throughout Alaska and Canada, and in a few areas in the lower 48 United States. Wolf populations exist in the Western Great Lakes states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, the Rocky Mountain states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming and a few remote areas of Arizona and New Mexico. Wolves are extremely adaptable, living from arctic tundra to mountains and grassy plains. They are able to survive almost any climate or terrain where sufficient food is available. Basically, wolves can survive where there is enough prey for them to eat and where humans will tolerate them.



Behavior and Communication: The wolf pack is one of nature's most sophisticated social orders, as well as one of the most intensively studied. A wolf pack is usually a family group of five to eight animals, usually consisting of a pair of breeding adults and their young of 1 or 2 years old. The breeding pair is likely to be the oldest, largest, and strongest wolves in the pack. They are known as the dominant wolves and are usually the only members of the pack to produce pups. Any wolf can become dominant. To do so, it must find an unoccupied territory and a member of the opposite sex with which to mate. Or, more rarely, it moves into a pack with a missing dominant wolf and take its place, or perhaps kills the dominant wolf and usurps its mate.

Wolves use body language to convey the rules of the pack and rule number one says that the pack is made up of leaders and followers. The dominant male and female are in charge of the pack. To communicate dominance, they carry their tails high and stand tall. Less dominant wolves exhibit submissive behavior by holding their tails down and often lower their bodies while pawing at the higher-ranking wolves. The pack has a complex social hierarchy maintained through a variety of vocalizations, body postures, and scent marking.

Wolves have keen senses of sight, hearing, and smell and can travel at approximately 5 miles per hour for long periods of time while hunting or traveling within their territory. A wolf pack may spend 8 - 10 hours a day on the move and may cover 40 miles a day during winter hunts. Wolves can reach a top speed of about 40 miles per hour for short periods of time.

Diet: Wolves evolved as a predator of large hoofed mammals. A tightly organized social structure enables them to work cooperatively to bring down prey that are much larger than themselves. They are opportunistic and usually kill what is easiest to catch such as the weak, sick, injured, old, and very young. Wolves also scavenge carrion, and take healthy, strong animals when possible. Living in a "feast or famine" world, wolves often go several days without successfully making a kill, but can gorge themselves and sometimes consume 20 pounds when a hunt has been successful.

In the wild in North America, gray wolves prey primarily on large, hoofed mammals such as white-tailed deer, mule deer, moose, elk, caribou, bison, Dall sheep, musk oxen, and mountain goat. Medium-sized mammals, such as beaver and snowshoe hare, can be a important secondary food sources. Occasionally wolves prey on birds or small mammals.

Artic Wolf

Description: Arctic wolves have adapted very well to the icy environment where they live. They have white fur, which allows them to blend into their snowy surroundings. To help reduce heat loss, they have more-rounded ears, a shorter muzzle and shorter legs than other gray wolf subspecies. They also have hair between the pads of their feet and long, thick fur to keep them warm in temperatures that can drop to minus 70° Fahrenheit.

Habitat and Range: Arctic wolves live primarily in the Arctic, the region located above 67° north latitude. The land is covered with snow and ice for most of the year, except for rare brief period during the summer. A low density of prey in the Arctic requires these wolves to have territories of well over 1,000 square miles, much larger than their southern relatives.




Behavior and Communication: The wolf pack is one of nature's most sophisticated social orders, as well as one of the most intensively studied. A wolf pack is usually a family group of five to eight animals, usually consisting of a pair of breeding adults and their young of 1 or 2 years old. The breeding pair is likely to be the oldest, largest, and strongest wolves in the pack. They are known as the dominant wolves and are usually the only members of the pack to produce pups. Any wolf can become dominant. To do so, it must find an unoccupied territory and a member of the opposite sex with which to mate. Or, more rarely, it moves into a pack with a missing dominant wolf and takes its place, or perhaps kills the dominant wolf and usurps its mate.

Wolves use body language to convey the rules of the pack and rule number one says that the pack is made up of leaders and followers. The dominant male and female are in charge of the pack. To communicate dominance, they carry their tails high and stand tall. Less dominant wolves exhibit submissive behavior by holding their tails down and often lower their bodies while pawing at the higher-ranking wolves. The pack has a complex social hierarchy maintained through a variety of vocalizations, body postures, and scent marking.

Wolves have keen senses of sight, hearing, and smell and can travel at approximately 5 miles per hour for long periods of time while hunting or traveling within their territory. A wolf pack may spend 8-10 hours a day on the move and may cover 40 miles a day during winter hunts. Wolves can reach a top speed of about 40 miles per hour for short periods of time.

Diet: The main prey of the arctic wolf is musk oxen, and arctic hare, but they will also eat Peary caribou, ptarmigan, lemmings, seals, and nesting birds.

North Eastern Grey Wolf

Description: This subspecies of gray wolf has a coat of black, white, gray, tan and even blue-ish. Gray or black wolves are the most common color phase found to occur. They typically stand about 30 inches at the shoulder and weigh between 85 and 115 pounds, although they can weigh as much as 145 pounds.

Range and Habitat: The Northwestern wolf, more commonly known as the Rocky Mountain wolf inhabits parts of the western United States, western Canada, and Alaska, including Unimak Island of the Aleutians, and is the sub-species that was reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park (YNP) and central Idaho in 1995-6.



Behavior and Communication: The wolf pack is one of nature's most sophisticated social orders, as well as one of the most intensively studied. A wolf pack is usually a family group of five to eight animals, usually consisting of a pair of breeding adults and their young of 1 or 2 years old. The breeding pair is likely to be the oldest, largest, and strongest wolves in the pack. They are known as the dominant wolves and are usually the only members of the pack to produce pups. Any wolf can become dominant. To do so, it must find an unoccupied territory and a member of the opposite sex with which to mate. Or, more rarely, it moves into a pack with a missing dominant wolf and take its place, or perhaps kills the dominant wolf and usurps its mate.

Wolves use body language to convey the rules of the pack and rule number one says that the pack is made up of leaders and followers. The dominant male and female are in charge of the pack. To communicate dominance, they carry their tails high and stand tall. Less dominant wolves exhibit submissive behavior by holding their tails down and often lower their bodies while pawing at the higher-ranking wolves. The pack has a complex social hierarchy maintained through a variety of vocalizations, body postures, and scent marking.

Wolves have keen senses of sight, hearing, and smell and can travel at approximately 5 miles per hour for long periods of time while hunting or traveling within their territory. A wolf pack may spend 8 - 10 hours a day on the move and may cover 40 miles a day during winter hunts. Wolves can reach a top speed of about 40 miles per hour for short periods of time.

The average pack size for the Northwestern wolf is generally 6-12 wolves, with some packs as large as 20-30 with one in YNP documented at 37.

Diet: The prey base of the Northwestern wolf includes a variety of hoofed mammals and other rodents, such as moose, bison, elk, caribou, Dall sheep, Sitka Black-tailed deer, mountain goats, beaver, salmon, vole, lemmings, ground squirrels and snowshoe hare.

Great Plains Wolf

Description: The Great Plains wolf is the most common subspecies of the gray wolf in the continental United States. A typical Great Plains wolf is between 4 ½ and 6 ½ feet long, from snout to tail, weights from 60-110 pounds and may have a coat of gray, black or buff with red-ish coloring.

Range and Habitat: The historic range of the Great Plains wolf was throughout the United States and the southern regions of Canada. It is currently found in the western Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada. North and South Dakota officials have noted lone wolves, but evidence indicates that the wolves were dispersers from populations outside the Dakotas, and that a breeding population probably does not exist there.




Behavior and Communication: The wolf pack is one of nature's most sophisticated social orders, as well as one of the most intensively studied. A wolf pack is usually a family group of five to eight animals, usually consisting of a pair of breeding adults and their young of 1 or 2 years old. The breeding pair is likely to be the oldest, largest, and strongest wolves in the pack. They are known as the dominant wolves and are usually the only members of the pack to produce pups. Any wolf can become dominant. To do so, it must find an unoccupied territory and a member of the opposite sex with which to mate. Or, more rarely, it moves into a pack with a missing dominant wolf and take its place, or perhaps kills the dominant wolf and usurps its mate.

Wolves use body language to convey the rules of the pack and rule number one says that the pack is made up of leaders and followers. The dominant male and female are in charge of the pack. To communicate dominance, they carry their tails high and stand tall. Less dominant wolves exhibit submissive behavior by holding their tails down and often lower their bodies while pawing at the higher-ranking wolves. The pack has a complex social hierarchy maintained through a variety of vocalizations, body postures, and scent marking.

Wolves have keen senses of sight, hearing, and smell and can travel at approximately 5 miles per hour for long periods of time while hunting or traveling within their territory. A wolf pack may spend 8 - 10 hours a day on the move and may cover 40 miles a day during winter hunts. Wolves can reach a top speed of about 40 miles per hour for short periods of time.

Average pack size for the Great plains wolf is five to six wolves.

Diet: The typical prey for the Great Plains wolf consists of white-tailed deer, moose, beaver, snowshoe hare, and smaller birds and mammals.

Red Wolf

The red wolf is a separate wolf species. The red wolf, the smallest wolf in the world, was once found in many parts of the southeastern USA, including Florida. But because of over development by humans, the red wolfs' main source of food became scarce. Just like the gray wolves to the north, the red wolves turned to hunting livestock. This of course caused a panic and farmers were hunting and killing the red wolves to save their livestock, almost to the point of extinction. . In 1967, red wolves were placed on the endangered species list. However, they are now extinct in the wild. However, there are breeding programs going on now in Washington State, to save these creatures. They have also been reintroduced into the wild. Three initial reintroductions have been successful, and 28 red wolves are currently living in the wild and now there is a protected area in North Carolina for the red wolf. You can see several adult Red Wolves at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, WA.

Description: The red wolf (Canis rufus) is distinguished from the gray wolf (Canis lupus) and the coyote (Canis latrans) by size and coloring. Intermediate in size between coyotes and gray wolves, red wolves average 45-80 pounds. They are mostly brown and buff colored, sometimes with red shading around their ears, muzzle and the backs of their legs.

Habitat and Range: Red wolves were once well established as a top predator throughout the Southeast. Their original range is believed to be the entire eastern forested region of North America from southeastern Canada to the Gulf Coast.

Behavior and Communication: The wolf pack is one of nature's most sophisticated social orders, as well as one of the most intensively studied. A wolf pack is usually a family group of five to eight animals, usually consisting of a pair of breeding adults and their young of 1 or 2 years old. The breeding pair is likely to be the oldest, largest, and strongest wolves in the pack. They are known as the dominant wolves and are usually the only members of the pack to produce pups. Any wolf can become dominant. To do so, it must find an unoccupied territory and a member of the opposite sex with which to mate. Or, more rarely, it moves into a pack with a missing dominant wolf and takes its place, or perhaps kills the dominant wolf and usurps its mate.





Diet: Red wolves are known to hunt individually and in packs, eating white-tailed deer and small mammals such as rabbits and rodents.They have also been known to prey on domestic pets and livestock, but in very small numbers.

Mexican Wolf

Description: Gray wolves are the largest of the canine family. The Mexican gray wolf is the rarest, smallest, and most genetically distinct subspecies of gray wolves known to live in North America. Mexican wolves typically weigh between 50-80 lbs. and have a varied coat color including mixtures of black, gray, white, red, and brown.

Habitat and Range: The range of the Mexican wolf is believed to have included central and southeastern Arizona, southern New Mexico, southwestern Texas and in the Sierra Madre and adjoining highlands of Mexico. Their habitat includes oak forests, oak/pine forests, or pine forests adjacent to open areas at elevations ranging from 4500-9000 feet above sea level. Unconfirmed reports persist from Durango and Chihuahua, with biologists attempting to confirm actual wolf presence in these areas.



Behavior and Communication: The wolf pack is one of nature's most sophisticated social orders, as well as one of the most intensively studied. A wolf pack is usually a family group of five to eight animals, usually consisting of a pair of breeding adults and their young of 1 or 2 years old. The breeding pair is likely to be the oldest, largest, and strongest wolves in the pack. They are known as the dominant wolves and are usually the only members of the pack to produce pups. Any wolf can become dominant. To do so, it must find an unoccupied territory and a member of the opposite sex with which to mate. Or, more rarely, it moves into a pack with a missing dominant wolf and take its place, or perhaps kills the dominant wolf and usurps its mate.

Wolves use body language to convey the rules of the pack and rule number one says that the pack is made up of leaders and followers. The dominant male and female are in charge of the pack. To communicate dominance, they carry their tails high and stand tall. Less dominant wolves exhibit submissive behavior by holding their tails down and often lower their bodies while pawing at the higher-ranking wolves. The pack has a complex social hierarchy maintained through a variety of vocalizations, body postures, and scent marking.

Wolves have keen senses of sight, hearing, and smell and can travel at approximately 5 miles per hour for long periods of time while hunting or traveling within their territory. A wolf pack may spend 8 - 10 hours a day on the move and may cover 40 miles a day during winter hunts. Wolves can reach a top speed of about 40 miles per hour for short periods of time.

The average pack size for the Northwestern wolf is generally 6-12 wolves, with some packs as large as 20-30 with one in YNP documented at 37.

Diet: Wolves evolved as a predator of large hoofed mammals, with a tightly organized social structure, which enables them to work cooperatively to bring down preys much larger than themselves. They will usually kill what is easiest to catch such as the weak, sick, injured, old and very young. Wolves will also scavenge carrion, and will take healthy, strong animals when possible. Living in a "feast or famine" world, wolves often go several days without successfully making a kill, but can gorge themselves and consume over 20 lbs. when the hunt has been successful. The Mexican wolf's major prey species were believed to include elk, mule deer, whitetail deer, pronghorn, javelin, and other small mammals.

My wolf is a Maned Wolf is that OK?

Your breed would probly be considerd 'uncommon' around these parts, but i think it is fine. Just in case you should run it by out admins (Linnea ((and)) Crimson) just in case. :)

Maned Wolves aren't actually wolves - they're their own species, in their own genus(Chrysocyon).
Thought I'd point that out ^^

No, your wolf would have to be an actual, live wolf species. ^_^

Its not? Shoot Mexican wolf is okay right? Cause thats my second choice

EDIT:
I gotta make another picture

Loreana, please make sure not to double post. You can always use the edit function to add to your post if need be. Thanks!

Mexican wolf is fine! :D