At such small numbers, red wolves can easily be lost among similar relatives.
- A red wolf is a mammal of medium size, native primarily to the marshes in the eastern areas of the United States.
- ‘Red wolves’ are also known as ‘Florida wolves’ and ‘Mississippi Valley wolves’.
- The scientific name of a red wolf is Canis rufus or Canis lupus rufus, and it is from the family Canidae, the family of dogs.
- The length of a red wolf, including the tail, is typically between 121 and 160 centimetres (48 and 63 inches) and it generally weighs between 23 and 39 kilograms (50 and 85 pounds).
- The fur of a red wolf is generally a combination of red, brown, black, grey and white in colour, although it is most notably red on parts of the face, ears, and legs.
A Red Wolf
Image courtesy of Brandon Trentler/Flickr
- The carnivorous diet of red wolves consists primarily of rodents, rabbits, raccoons and deer, and they have an average lifespan of 10 to 12 years.
- A female red wolf has approximately five to seven pups at a time, in dens in hollow trees, on river banks or in those that have been made by other animals but deserted.
- By 1980, red wolves had become extinct in the wild as a result of coyote cross-breeding and hunting by humans, as well as possible habitat destruction.
- Red wolves live in packs that can consist of two to ten wolves, and they are most often closely related to each other.
- In 2015, red wolves were listed as critically endangered, due to captive breeding programs that allowed them to be reintroduced into the wild from 1987 in North Carolina, and as such, they are a protected species.
Bibliography:
Canis rufus, 2015, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/3747/0
Red Wolf, 2015, A-Z Animals, http://a-z-animals.com/animals/red-wolf/
Red Wolf, 2015, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_wolf
