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Arctic wolf, one of the northernmost occurring populations of wolves. Wolf distribution is the species distribution of the wolf (Canis lupus).Originally, wolves occurred in Eurasia above the 12th parallel north and in North America above the 15th parallel north.
This map uses the more broadly defined North American subspecies of Nowak (1995), [1] [2] but see also the map under the section titled North America. There are 38 subspecies of Canis lupus listed in the taxonomic authority Mammal Species of the World (2005, 3rd edition).
In 2021, a mitochondrial DNA analysis of North American wolf-like canines indicates that the extinct Late Pleistocene Beringian wolf was the ancestor of the southern wolf clade, which includes the Mexican wolf and the Great Plains wolf. The Mexican wolf is the most ancestral of the gray wolves that live in North America today. [18]
As of 2018, the global gray wolf population is estimated to be 200,000–250,000. [1] Once abundant over much of North America and Eurasia, the gray wolf inhabits a smaller portion of its former range because of widespread human encroachment and destruction of its habitat, and the resulting human-wolf encounters that sparked broad extirpation.
The wolf (Canis lupus; [b] pl.: wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a canine native to Eurasia and North America.More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus have been recognized, including the dog and dingo, though grey wolves, as popularly understood, only comprise naturally-occurring wild subspecies.
Wolves have naturally migrated in the three state region. As of 2021, the estimated stable population is 4,400 in the three states. [20] Wolves may also disperse across the Great Plains into this region from the northern Rocky Mountain region which includes Wyoming with approximately 300 wolves and Colorado with a small population.
About 2,250 km (1,400 mi) south of the High Arctic, a wolf movement study took place in the wintertime in complete darkness, when the temperature was as low as −53 °C (−63 °F). The researchers found that wolves prey mainly on the muskoxen. There is no available information of the wolves' movements where the muskoxen were. [22]
It likely crossed into North America through the Bering land bridge after the last ice age, displacing C. l. nubilus populations as it advanced, a process which has continued until present times. Along with C. l. nubilus, C. l. occidentalis is the most widespread member of the four gray wolf subspecies in North America, with at least six ...