10 Facts about Arctic Wolves

Saturday, March 21st 2015. | Animals

If you want to know the Melville Island wolf, you have to check Facts about Arctic Wolves. The Latin name for this animal is Canis Lupus arctos. The wolves are native to the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. You can find them in Ellesmere Island and Melville Island. Let’s find out the size, color and lifestyle of Arctic wolves by reading the following post below:

Facts about Arctic Wolves 1: the size

Let’s find out the size of the arctic wolves. The animals have larger size if you compare them with the northwestern wolves. They have the medium size. The northwestern wolves have smaller size.

Facts about Arctic Wolves 2: the features

The arctic wolves have large carnassials, whiter color and narrow braincase. The size of the skull of arctic wolves has been reduced since 1930. It is probably because of the wolf-dog hybridization.

Arctic Wolves White

Facts about Arctic Wolves 3: the relationship of arctic wolves and human being

Arctic wolves are familiar with human settlement. Most of them are unafraid with the presence of human being. But if you encounter arctic wolves, you have to be careful too just in case that they are very aggressive.

Facts about Arctic Wolves 4: Otto Sverdrup and aggressive wolves

You have to read the Fram expedition by Otto Sverdrup. In his account, he told that the one of his team-mates was attacked by a pair of wolves. To defend himself, he used the skiing pole.

Arctic Wolves

Facts about Arctic Wolves 5: the non aggressive wolves

But the arctic wolves are not always aggressive when they meet human. There were six wolves which approached a pair of scientists when they were on Ellesmere Island in 1977. The wolves were not aggressive. One of them leaped at one scientist. Find out arctic fox facts here.

Facts about Arctic Wolves 6: the aggressive incidents

There are various kinds of aggressive incidents which occur in Alert, Nunavut.

Arctic Wolves Color

Facts about Arctic Wolves 7: a different subspecies

Reginald Pocock was the British zoologist who placed the arctic wolf as a different subspecies in 1935.

Facts about Arctic Wolves 8: haplotypes

Haplotypes of arctic wolves is not unique based on the studies of Arctic wolf autosomal microsatellite DNA and mtDNA data. Therefore, it should not be granted as a subspecies.