Arctic Wolves

by Kenneth, Bank Street School for Children

Appearance
Food
Life Cycle
Habitat

Appearance

Arctic wolves have a thick white fur coat that changes in the winter. In the winter fur also grows on the Arctic wolf's legs to keep them warm. Wolves can change into different colors like black, brown, pure white and more. A Timber wolves fur help them hide from their predators. Their fur helps them blend in with their suroundings. Tundra wolves have pure white fur. Their fur keeps them very warm.

The size of a wolf can be forty inches tall (the size of a German Shepherd) to sixty three inches tall(as big as a Saint Bernard). The smallest wolf in the world is the Arabian wolf which is thirty two inches tall. At birth wolves are eight to nine inches and weigh a pound.

Wolves have sharp teeth, at the corner of their mouth. Their teeth can be two inches long. Farther back in their mouth they have razor sharp teeth for cutting skin and bone. Wolves are very fast animals the can run forty miles without rest.

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Food, Eating and Hunting Habits

Wolves are carnivores(animals that eat meat). Wolves hunt in packs. They are very good hunters and use three main sense which are hearing, smelling and sight.. Wolves often go miles to find food. They use their sense of smell for tracking down prey. Wolves hunt hoofed animals like caribou, muck ox, deer, moose, beavers, rabbits and rodents. Wolves hunt the weakest prey like the youngest, sickest or the oldest(elder). They sometimes howl before hunting and after a kill.

The mother protects the pups wile the pack goes for food. Wolves carry food in their stomach for the babies, when they reach the den they give it to them that is called regurgitating. When wolves are finished eating they take a nap where ever the leader chooses. The leader of a pack is mostly a male but there's also a female leader.

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Life Cycle, Mating and Reproduction

A wolf pack is made when a male and a female mate and they have pups and when the pups grow up they find mates and so on. the leader of the pack is the strongest and if he/she picks a fight and the challenger wins he/she becomes the leader. Wolves often live up to 15 years.

Wolves mate for life. They have only one mate. Arctic Wolves mate on the tundra. Wolves can mate by the time they're two years of age. Wolves play with each before mating so that they can get to know one another. The wolves mate in late winter around March, mostly in the middle of the month. The pups are born sometimes in late May, it depends also when the mother became pregnant. A female wolf is pregnant for 63 days or less. Wolves could have five to six pups in a litter.

The mother digs a den so she could put her pups in. Pups come out of the den by the time theycan see and hear very well. By the time they can see, they begin to look around the den. they learn to stand and walk. their front teeth come at this time and they begin chewing gently on each others tails. Pups can hear and see well by the time they're three weeks old. Now they can go farther and beyond the den.

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Habitat, Environment and Shelter

Almost any environment can be a home for a wolf. Two places where wolves live are desserts of the United states and the dense, wet forests of southern-east Mexico. What a wolf needs in its environment is a place to escape its enemies. Arctic Wolves live on the Arctic tundra. In the summer the tundra has lot of flowers and more animals come or passover the land. In the summer the tundra has lots of flowers and loos grassy and rocky. In the winter it's very cold on the tundra so the Arctic wolves move to a different area until winter comes again and then they move and so on. When wolves have pups both mother and father dig a den so they and thie pups can live there. Wolves dig dens in the tundra or where ever they live.

Gray wolves once roamed most of the North American continent except in the coastal areas of southern California, in the hottest desserts and in the deep south-east. Minnesota is the only place in the United States except Alaska where wolves live today.

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