|
|
 23 wolves DHJanzen101156.jpg high resolution
|
|
| While wolves (Canis lupus, Canidae) ranged from Mexico north across all of North America, today they are at least common in some subarctic areas. In a year of lemming peak density, wolf diets contain large numbers of lemmings (they also eat other small rodents further to the south). While it is popular to think of wolves killing and subsisting on large animals (deer, moose, elk, etc.) in fact during the summer months of a lemming outbreak - and when the lemmings are generally not hiding under a dense snow pack - wolf diet may consist almost entirely of lemmings. While wolves do not normally range into the far arctic, certainly they are a major part of arctic life at the tundra-black spruce interface a bit further south - and when there were wooly mammoths ranging north of the tree line, the wolves probably did as well. | ||
back to lecture slides
or skip to: