7 Unusual Facts About Wolves

Wolves are cannibals

Unlike most mammals – wolves are prone to cannibalism. When a wolf is injured or become weak by age, and other members of the pack are very hungry, there are frequent cases it is killed and eaten. Also, when the alpha male is “replaced” from the throne, the other members of the pack kill and eat its youngest offspring.

Leader is always the last

The leader of the wolf pack is always last in the column. The wolves in the pack actually behave like a family where each member has a role.

The leader of the pack is not always at the forefront, nor is everything else first. Usually the oldest members of the pack, the weak and the sick, are the first. They give pace to the rest of the pack.

If the situation was reversed the oldest would lagged and probably died. Why is the leader at the end? Although it seems to lag behind the rest of the wolves it is actually located in the best position from which can monitor and coordinate the pack, or give orders to other wolves .

The sacrifice of the weak and the sick

Old and sick in pack have two tasks. The first is to break a path in the snow, and to facilitate the movement of the rest of the pack. In this way, young wolves kept power for hunting.

The second task is to be “protection” to the rest of the pack. If there is an attack on the pack, the pack will sacrifice some of the weakest and the sick, and for the time to prepare a defense.

They survived the Ice Age

Did you know that the wolves lived during ice age? Exactly, they have managed to survive the ice age and is believed to have existed for 500,000 years.

Wolves who lived then in North America are actually extinct later. Today in North America are descended from Eurasian wolves that have migrated to North America when the sea level fell to the Bering Sea, 50,000 years ago.

Are black wolves really true wolves?

DNA analysis showed that never existed a real black wolves.

The study from 2008 conducted at Stanford University has shown that for the black fur is responsive mixing with domestic dogs, several thousand years ago.

This means that every black wolf has some genes of the domestic dog.

White wolves are not the result of mixing of genes from domestic dogs but are the result of albinism.

Wolves have tasted human flesh

They do not eat human flesh, but during the plague in Europe human corpses were placed everywhere. It is possible then, because of the lack of food, some wolves tasted human flesh, and began to attack people.

This is confirmed by the fact that at the time were frequent wolf attacks on humans. In recent years, there is no record that a healthy wolf attacked a man.

Wolf cries

Did you know that wolves can be depressed and sad? They have a strong emotional connection with their friends, and this is best illustrated by the fact that when one member of the pack dies, other wolves mourn.

For some it takes up to 6 weeks to get their lives back to normal, and depression can easily be noticed by the bowed head and the tail, the slow pace and “wolf cries”.