NAME: GRAY WOLF SCIENTIFIC NAME: CANIS LUPUS KINGDOM: ANIMALIA PHYLUM: CHORDATA CLASS: MAMMALIA ORDER: CARNIVORA

FAMILY: CANIDAE GENUS: CANIS SPECIES: CANIS LUPUS SIZE: HEAD AND BODY =36- 65 (91-160 cm) TAIL= 13-20(33-51 cm) WEIGHT: 40-175 lbs (18-79 kg) STATUS: ENDANGERED

The gray wolf used to be found all over the northern hemisphere but have since been hunted and you can now only find them in a few places. For example: Alaska, Canada, Asia and a few places in Europe. The gray wolf usually lives in the snow, the gray wolf has made many adaptions to its body over time such as a thick, shaggy coat of insulating fur to keep them warm and changing the colour of their coat to grey so they can blend into the snow when they are out hunting. The gray wolves feed on a variety of food which depends on what habitat they are in. If the gray wolf and his pack are near civilisation then they will hardly ever attack humans and instead attack domestic animals for their food. However when a gray wolf and his pack are out in the wild they will eat pretty much whatever they find from deer to moose to snakes. Gray wolves dont hunt by themselves for these animals and instead prefer to hunt in packs. Once the hunting pack has brought back the kill all of the pack tuck in and can eat 20 pounds (9 kilograms) of meat by themselves. Gray wolves stay in packs when they are moving around. This is basically their family. In this family there is an alpha male and his mate. Although all of the female wolves can have cubs it is normally only the alpha male and his mate who have cubs. There are roughly 106,000 116,000 gray wolves left in the world but in Russia roughly 15,000 wolves are killed yearly for their fur.

Wolf range