Red wolf with long legs. Red wolf (photo): A dangerous predator with an unusual appearance. Types of wolves, photos and names

Five red wolf cubs from the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium (Tacoma, Washington) were born this spring and are now beginning to gradually get out of their den and explore the spacious enclosure.

However, wolf cubs do not go far and try to stay close to their mother, since they are still dairy and feed only on her milk.

Red american wolf(Canis lupus rufus) most rare representative wolf families. This species once inhabited most eastern United States, from Pennsylvania to Texas. However, in the XX century. due to extermination, habitat destruction and hybridization with coyotes, red wolves have been on the verge of extinction.

By the end of the 70s in wild nature red wolves have completely disappeared, surviving only in American zoos and special nurseries (only a subspecies of three - Canis rufus gregoryi, the other two Canis rufus rufus andCanis rufus floridanus completely extinct ).


From your closest relative gray wolf red wolves are smaller. The red wolf is slimmer, with longer legs and ears, and shorter fur. However, it is larger than a coyote: its body length is 100-130 cm, tail - 30-42 cm, height at the withers - 66-79 cm.

In nature, red wolves fed mainly on raccoons, rabbits and small rodents. Occasionally, if the flock is large, they could overwhelm a deer. The red wolf is listed in the international Red Book with the status "species in critical danger"(Critically endangered).



The wolf is a symbol of cruelty, ferocity, anger and gluttony. AT real life the wolf acts independently and brings a lot of evil to people and many animals.

Exists a large number of folk expressions dedicated to this evil beast, which could be deposited in your subconscious and become a kind of message for the appearance of the image of a wolf in a dream: “People are dear, but the wolf is on the side”, “They beat the wolf not because it is gray, but because the sheep ate”, “Wolf winter for the custom. Winter is said to the wolf”, “No matter how much you feed the wolf, he always looks into the forest”, “The wolf ate raw meat, but spun high”, “Wolves howl under housing - to frost or to war” and many others.

To dream of a wolf hunting a goat means that in real life you should not expect help from other people; Problems that arise can only be solved by you.

If in a dream the wolf does not catch up with the kid, then such a dream suggests that you should not take on the business offered to you, otherwise you will lose everything you have.

Watch in a dream a wolf that stands near high mountain and looks at a goat grazing on it - a sign that in real life you will find yourself in difficult situation, from which you will be able to get out with honor and even benefit.

If the goat is standing on a mountain where there is no vegetation, and the wolf is below in a green meadow, then in the near future your enemies will show themselves, but, despite all their efforts, they will not be able to defeat you, because you are much smarter and smarter than them.

If you dreamed of a wolf waiting for its prey near a herd of grazing cattle, then this dream is clear evidence that in real life, despite all your efforts, you will not be able to prevent evil.

To see in a dream a wolf secretly removing thirst from the trough of domestic animals indicates that there are very evil person, whose actions are insidious and at the same time secretive.

Such a dream may also mean that you should be very careful, otherwise you yourself will not understand how you will lose your job, property, family, and possibly even life.

Caring for a wounded wolf in a dream is a sign that you will meet a person about whom you have heard only the worst before. But such a dream also indicates that these rumors will not come true, and you will understand that this person is not so bad as you were told.

Threatening your child in a dream with a wolf, that is, telling him when he cannot fall asleep: “A gray top will come and drag him by the barrel,” means that in real life your words almost always diverge from deeds.

Listening to the howl of a wolf in a dream is evidence that you will soon be falsely accused. Perhaps such a dream suggests that your work colleague is plotting against you.

Interpretation of dreams from the Ancient dream book

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Canis lupus rufus ) - predatory mammal, a subspecies of the common wolf. Previously considered separate view Canis rufus. Not to be confused with red wolf Cuon alpinus).

The rarest member of the wolf family, the red wolf once inhabited much of the eastern United States, from Pennsylvania to Texas. However, in c. due to extermination, habitat destruction and hybridization with coyotes, red wolves have been on the verge of extinction. Their range was first reduced to the extreme southwest of Louisiana and southeast Texas, and by the end of the 70s. red wolves in nature have finally disappeared, and only individuals have survived in zoos and nurseries. Starting from the year, work is underway to return red wolves to natural environment habitats - in the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee.

Appearance

Red wolves differ from their closest relative, the gray wolf, in their smaller size. The red wolf is slimmer, with longer legs and ears, and shorter fur. However, it is larger than a coyote: its body length is 100-130 cm, tail - 30-42 cm, height at the withers - 66-79 cm. Adult males weigh 20-40 kg, females, as a rule, are 1/3 lighter.

The color of the fur is red, brown, gray and black. The back is usually black. The muzzle and limbs are reddish, the end of the tail is black. The red coloration from which the species got its name was predominant among the Texan populations. Red fur also dominates in winter. The annual molt occurs in summer.

Lifestyle and nutrition

In terms of lifestyle, the red wolf is close to the common wolf. Initially, they lived in forests, on swampy lowlands and on coastal prairies; were nocturnal. Red wolves are now being repopulated in hard-to-reach mountainous and swampy areas.

Packs of red wolves are smaller than those of gray wolves; they consist of a family (breeding) couple and their offspring, both young and grown. Sometimes families get bigger. There are practically no manifestations of aggression in the family, however, family members are unfriendly towards unfamiliar wolves.

The food of the red wolf is predominantly rodents (including nutrias and muskrats), rabbits and raccoons; occasionally a flock catches a deer. In addition to the diet are insects and berries, as well as carrion.

In turn, red wolves can become victims of other wolves, including relatives from other packs. Young animals are hunted large predators- alligators and bobcats.

reproduction

Red wolves live in families in which only dominant pairs breed. A pair, like other wolves, is created on long time. The remaining members of the group help raise the offspring and bring food for lactating wolves.

The breeding season runs from January to March. Pregnancy lasts 60-63 days; there are 3-6 puppies in a litter (rarely - up to 12), which are born in the spring. Lairs of females are arranged in pits under fallen trees, in sandy slopes, along river banks. Both parents are engaged in offspring; puppies become independent at 6 months.

The life expectancy of a red wolf in nature is 4 years; in captivity, they lived up to 14 years.

Population status

Traditionally, there were three subspecies of the red wolf, two of which have become extinct.

  • Canis rufus floridanus died out to
  • Canis rufus rufus declared extinct in
  • Canis rufus gregoryi died out in nature by

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  • Denezhkin stone (reserve)
  • Money stone (mountain)

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    RED WOLF- (Сanis alpinus), a mammal of the family. wolf. Unity, kind of genus. It is similar to the common wolf, but differs from it in smaller size, rusty red color, fluffy tail and less (by 1) number of lower. molars. Length bodies in cf. 100 cm,… … Biological encyclopedic dictionary

    mountain wolf- (Cams alpinus), Buryat bison, Tungus Jerkul. Position in the system and the main signs, see Canine. Smaller than an ordinary wolf and in appearance resembles a large shepherd dog. It differs from the sorcerer in larger upper molars. Length … encyclopedic Dictionary F. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

K:Wikipedia:Articles without images (type: not specified)

The rarest member of the wolf family, the red wolf once inhabited much of the eastern United States, from Pennsylvania to Texas. However, in the 20th century, due to extermination, habitat destruction and hybridization with coyotes, red wolves were on the verge of extinction. Their range was first reduced to the extreme southwest of Louisiana and southeast Texas, and by the end of the 70s of the XX century, red wolves completely disappeared in nature, and only individuals remained in zoos and nurseries. Since 1988, work has been underway to return red wolves to their natural habitat - in the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee.

Appearance


Red wolves differ from their closest relative, the gray wolf, in their smaller size. The red wolf is slimmer, with longer legs and ears, and shorter fur. However, it is larger than a coyote: its body length is 100-130 cm, tail - 30-42 cm, height at the withers - 66-79 cm. Adult males weigh 20-41 kg, females, as a rule, are 1/3 lighter.

The color of the fur is red, brown, gray and black. The back is usually black. The muzzle and limbs are reddish, the end of the tail is black. The red coloration from which the species got its name was predominant among the Texan populations. Red fur also dominates in winter. The annual molt occurs in summer.

Lifestyle and nutrition

In terms of lifestyle, the red wolf is close to the common wolf. Initially, they lived in forests, on swampy lowlands and on coastal prairies; were nocturnal. Red wolves are now being repopulated in hard-to-reach mountainous and swampy areas.

Packs of red wolves are smaller than those of gray wolves; they consist of a family (breeding) couple and their offspring, both young and grown. Sometimes families get bigger. There are practically no manifestations of aggression in the family, however, family members are unfriendly towards unfamiliar wolves.

The food of the red wolf is predominantly rodents (including nutrias and muskrats), rabbits and raccoons; occasionally a flock catches a deer. In addition to the diet are insects and berries, as well as carrion.

In turn, red wolves can become victims of other wolves, including relatives from other packs, alligators or cougars. Young animals are preyed upon by predators such as bobcats.

reproduction

Red wolves live in families in which only dominant pairs breed. A pair, like other wolves, is created for a long time. The remaining members of the group help raise the offspring and bring food for lactating wolves.

The breeding season runs from January to March. Pregnancy lasts 60-63 days; in a litter, on average, 3-6 puppies (rarely - up to 12), which are born in the spring. Female dens are arranged in pits under fallen trees, in sandy slopes, along river banks. Both parents are engaged in offspring; puppies become independent at 6 months.

The average life expectancy of a red wolf in nature is 8 years; in captivity, they lived up to 14 years.

Population status

Traditionally, there were three subspecies of the red wolf, two of which have become extinct.

  • Canis rufus floridanus extinct by 1930
  • Canis rufus rufus declared extinct in 1970,
  • Canis rufus gregoryi extinct in nature by 1980.

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Notes

An excerpt characterizing the Red Wolf

- You have a good bitch! he said casually. - Rezva?
- This? Yes, this one is a kind dog, it catches, ”Ilagin said in an indifferent voice about his red-haired Yerza, for whom a year ago he gave his neighbor three families of courtyards. - So you, Count, do not boast of being hammered? He continued the conversation. And considering it polite to repay the young count in the same way, Ilagin examined his dogs and chose Milka, who caught his eye with her width.
- You have a good black-pie - okay! - he said.
“Yes, nothing, he’s jumping,” answered Nikolai. “If only a hardened hare would run into the field, I would show you what kind of dog this is!” he thought, and turning to the stirrup said that he gives a ruble to someone who suspects, that is, finds a lying hare.
“I don’t understand,” Ilagin continued, “how other hunters are envious of the beast and dogs. I'll tell you about myself, Count. It amuses me, you know, to take a ride; now you’ll move in with such a company ... what’s better already (he again took off his beaver cap in front of Natasha); and this is to count the skins, how many he brought - I don’t care!
- Well, yes.
- Or so that I would be offended that someone else's dog would catch, and not mine - I just would like to admire the persecution, right, count? Then I judge...
- Atu - his, - a drawn-out cry of one of the stopped greyhounds was heard at that time. He stood on a semi-mound of stubble, raising a rapnik, and once again repeated drawlingly: - A - that - him! (This sound and the raised rapnik meant that he sees a hare lying in front of him.)
“Ah, I suspect, I think,” Ilagin said casually. - Well, let's go, count!
- Yes, you need to drive up ... yes - well, together? answered Nikolai, peering at Yerza and at the red Uncle Rugai, at his two rivals, with whom he had never yet managed to level his dogs. “Well, how will my Milka be cut off from my ears!” he thought, moving towards the hare next to his uncle and Ilagin.
- Mother? Ilagin asked, moving towards the suspicious hunter, and not without excitement, looking around and whistling to Yerza...
“And you, Mikhail Nikanorych?” he turned to his uncle.
Uncle rode frowning.
- Why should I meddle, because yours is a pure march! - in the village they paid for the dog, your thousandths. You measure yours, and I'll take a look!
- Scold! On, on, he shouted. - Scold! he added, involuntarily expressing by this diminutive his tenderness and hope placed in this red dog. Natasha saw and felt the excitement hidden by these two old men and her brother, and she herself was worried.
The hunter stood on a half-hill with a raised rapnik, the gentlemen drove up to him at a step; the hounds, walking on the very horizon, turned away from the hare; hunters, not gentlemen, also drove off. Everything moved slowly and sedately.
- Where is the head? Nikolai asked, driving up a hundred paces to the suspicious hunter. But before the hunter had time to answer, the hare, sensing frost by tomorrow morning, could not lie down and jumped up. A flock of hounds on bows, with a roar, rushed downhill after a hare; from all sides, the greyhounds, who were not in packs, rushed to the hounds and to the hare. All those slow-moving hunters-snipers shouting: stop! knocking down dogs, greyhounds shouting: atu! guiding the dogs, they galloped across the field. Calm Ilagin, Nikolai, Natasha and uncle flew, not knowing how and where, seeing only dogs and a hare, and fearing only to lose sight of the persecution even for a moment. The hare was caught hardened and frisky. Jumping up, he did not immediately gallop, but moved his ears, listening to the scream and clatter that suddenly resounded from all sides. He jumped about ten times slowly, letting the dogs approach him, and finally, having chosen a direction and realizing the danger, put his ears to the ground and rushed at full speed. He was lying on the stubble, but in front there were greenery, on which it was marshy. The two dogs of the suspicious hunter, who were the closest of all, were the first to look and pawn behind the hare; but they had not yet moved far towards him, when the Ilaginskaya red-spotted Yerza flew out from behind them, approached the dog at a distance, with terrible speed gave, aiming at the tail of the hare and thinking that she had grabbed him, rolled head over heels. The hare arched its back and pushed even harder. A broad-assed, black-spotted Milka came out from behind Yerza and quickly began to sing to the hare.
- Honey! mother! - Nikolai's triumphant cry was heard. It seemed that Milka would now hit and pick up the hare, but she caught up and swept past. Rusak retired. The beautiful Yerza settled down again and hung over the very tail of the hare, as if trying on how not to make a mistake now, to grab her back thigh.
- Erzanka! sister! I heard Ilagin crying, not his own voice. Erza did not heed his pleas. At the very moment when it was necessary to wait for her to grab the hare, he swung and rolled out to the border between greenery and stubble. Again Yerza and Milka, like a drawbar pair, leveled off and began to sing to the hare; at the turn it was easier for the hare, the dogs did not approach him so quickly.

Conservation measures are primarily aimed at saving species that are on the verge of extinction and also attract our interest. For a long time, North American met both of these criteria. However, now the question of its origin has sharply arisen. Therefore, its survival may depend on whether it is a separate species at all.

Most wolves belong to the species Canis lupus, which has several separate morphological types that occupy certain parts of the range, including forest and tundra wolf. In the past, zoologists mostly viewed the red wolf as independent view, common in the eastern United States, from Pennsylvania in the north to Texas in the west. According to the traditional view, human persecution and the increasing destruction of habitats as a result of economic activities have doomed this species to extinction. The disappearance of individual populations of the red wolf began in the 60s. XX century; by 1980 only about 80 individuals remained, most of which live in captivity.

But soon a different view of this problem appeared. Some scientists even challenged the species status of the red wolf. In their opinion, the red wolf did not evolve over millions of years, but arose as a result of the hybridization of coyotes and gray wolves during human settlement and disruption of the structure of the natural populations of these animals. Habitat loss caused a mixture of previously isolated populations, and such hybrid individuals became a transitional form to the red wolf.

Intensive study of anatomical and genetic features red wolf over the past few years has produced conflicting results. Study behavioral features, morphological characteristics of the skull, mitochondrial DNA and the micro-satellite part of the DNA confirmed the species status of the red wolf. The red wolf originated in the early Pleistocene over 500,000 years ago, and more importantly, it was the precursor from which modern coyotes and gray wolves evolved. According to this theory, the number of the red wolf began to decline in nature after 1940. In this regard, coyotes and red wolf-coyote hybrids replaced red wolves in most of the original range.

But there is also genetic evidence in favor of the hybridization theory. The results of most studies conducted in the 1990s support the new hypothesis that gray wolves and coyotes may have interbred repeatedly prior to European settlement in the southern and central United States, although the possibility that crossbreeding may have occurred recently, in the result of human-induced environmental changes.

An unexpected turn in this story was the results of further genetic research, which showed a close relationship between the red wolf and wolves living in southeastern Canada, which were previously considered gray wolves. The connection has also been confirmed by morphology and fossil remains. Perhaps the most interesting feature red wolves is their ability to interbreed with coyotes, which makes both species prone to genetic mixing. According to new point In terms of vision, a significant proportion of those animals that were considered gray wolves living in eastern Canada and in the Great Lakes region may turn out to be red wolves or hybrids of gray and red. And the "coyotes" that now inhabit the eastern United States may be hybrids of coyotes and red wolves.


Red wolves by appearance almost indistinguishable from their much more common relatives, the gray wolf. Only a few individuals have a reddish coloration. An example is this beautiful specimen, which is a mixture of tawny, fawn, gray and black.

This new information allowed to put forward another hypothesis of the origin of the red wolf. She suggests that gray wolves, red wolves, and coyotes are descendants of a common North American ancestor, where the red wolf and the coyote form one evolutionary branch and the gray wolf form another. According to this model of evolution, the predecessor of all modern wolves migrated to Eurasia 1–2 million years ago, where it evolved into the modern gray wolf before returning to North America in the Pleistocene, about 300,000 years ago. Around the same time, the Eastern Canadian red wolf and the coyote split, which arose in North America.

It is clear that efforts to restore red and gray wolves in North America need to be reassessed if red wolf populations remain in southeast Canada. This is much more than a purely academic interest, given that the Ministry of Nature and Fisheries spends approximately $4 million annually on red wolf reintroduction.

It is now believed that the wolves of southeastern Canada are a mixture of hybrids between different forms- between the Old World gray wolf of the lupus type and the local New World lycaon wolf, as well as between the red wolf and the coyote and the gray wolf. Some of them may also be gray wolf-coyote hybrids. Although geneticists believe that direct hybridization between gray wolves and coyotes is unlikely to occur, it is possible that it happened "step by step": red wolf-coyote hybrids mated with gray wolves.

Dilemma for environmental organizations is to determine if such hybridization took place, was it caused by human influence? If the red wolf is not real look, then the question of the degree of human participation in this phenomenon becomes more than controversial. If this is a real species and hybridization is a natural phenomenon, then it is more of a "process" of speciation rather than a "steady state". If hybridization is caused economic activity human, then that wolf should be protected for all the reasons we work to preserve biodiversity in nature. The lesson is that we must pay equal attention to the protection of evolutionary processes and the protection of species. So far, conservationists have focused only on the protection of the species themselves, but such an approach is inappropriate on the scale of evolutionary time. It is likely that the evolution of North American wolves has not ended, it is happening before our eyes. Despite the advent of genetic methods that have increased our ability to study taxonomy, our knowledge of kinship wild wolves gaping voids remain. Discovery of a recipe for the formation of natural "wolf hybrids" in North America - important direction work to protect endangered species.

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