The Arctic wolf (''Canis lupus arctos''), also known as the white wolf or polar wolf, is a subspecies of grey wolf native to the

High Arctic tundra The High Arctic tundra ecoregion (WWF ID: NA1110) covers most of Canada's northern Arctic Archipelago - from the Queen Elizabeth Islands nearest to Greenland in the northeast, and down through the center of Baffin Island. Much of the northern ...

of Canada's

Queen Elizabeth Islands The Queen Elizabeth Islands (french: Îles de la Reine-Élisabeth; formerly Parry Islands or Parry Archipelago) are the northernmost cluster of islands in Canada's Arctic Archipelago, split between Nunavut and the Northwest Territories in Northe ...

, from Melville Island to

Ellesmere Island Ellesmere Island ( iu, script=Latn, Umingmak Nuna, lit=land of muskoxen; french: île d'Ellesmere) is Canada's northernmost and List of Canadian islands by area, third largest island, and the List of islands by area, tenth largest in the world. ...

.https://ecoregions.appspot.com/ Unlike some populations that move between tundra and forest regions, Arctic wolves spend their entire lives north of the northern treeline. Their distribution to south is limited to the northern fringes of the

Middle Arctic tundra The Middle Arctic tundra ecoregion (WWF ID: NA1115) covers a broad stretch of northern Canada - the southern islands of the Arctic Archipelago, plus the northern mainland of Nunavut and, across Hudson Bay to the east, a portion of northern Quebec. ...

on the southern half of

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...

and Somerset Islands. It is a medium-sized subspecies, distinguished from the

northwestern wolf The northwestern wolf (''Canis lupus occidentalis''), also known as the Mackenzie Valley wolf, Alaskan timber wolf, or Canadian timber wolf, is a subspecies of gray wolf in western North America. Arguably the largest grey wolf subspecies in the ...

by its smaller size, its whiter colouration, its narrower

braincase In human anatomy, the neurocranium, also known as the braincase, brainpan, or brain-pan is the upper and back part of the skull, which forms a protective case around the brain. In the human skull, the neurocranium includes the calvaria or skul ...

,Goldman, E. A. (1964). Classification of wolves. In ''The Wolves of North America'' Part 2. Young, S. P. & Goldman, E. A. (Eds.) New York: Dover Publs. p. 430. and larger carnassials. Since 1930, there has been a progressive reduction in size in Arctic wolf skulls, which is likely the result of wolf-dog hybridization.

Taxonomy

Map indicating the Queen Elizabeth (or Parry) Islands, northern Canada

In 1935, the British zoologist

Reginald Pocock Reginald Innes Pocock F.R.S. (4 March 1863 – 9 August 1947) was a British zoologist. Pocock was born in Clifton, Bristol, the fourth son of Rev. Nicholas Pocock and Edith Prichard. He began showing interest in natural history at St. Edward ...

attributed the subspecies name ''Canis lupus arctos'' (Arctic wolf) to a specimen from Melville Island in the

, Canada. He wrote that similar wolves could be found on Ellesmere Island. He also attributed the name ''Canis lupus orion'' to a Greenland wolf specimen from Cape York, northwest Greenland. Both wolves are recognized as separate subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' in the taxonomic authority '' Mammal Species of the World'' (2005). A study by Chambers ''et al''. (2012) using autosomal

microsatellite A microsatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA in which certain DNA motifs (ranging in length from one to six or more base pairs) are repeated, typically 5–50 times. Microsatellites occur at thousands of locations within an organism's genome. ...

DNA and

Mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial D ...

data indicate that the Arctic wolf has no unique

haplotype A haplotype ( haploid genotype) is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent. Many organisms contain genetic material ( DNA) which is inherited from two parents. Normally these organisms have their DNA or ...

s which suggests that its colonization of the Arctic Archipelago from the North American mainland was relatively recent, and thus not sufficient to warrant subspecies status. During a meeting assembled in 2014 by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis of the

United States Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...

, one speaker, Robert K. Wayne, mentioned he disagreed with the conclusion that a subspecies had to be genetically distinct, believing that different subspecies could slowly grade into each other - suggesting that although it was impossible to determine if an individual wolf was one subspecies or the next using DNA, the population of Arctic wolves as a whole could be distinguished by the looking at the proportions of

single-nucleotide polymorphism In genetics, a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP ; plural SNPs ) is a germline substitution of a single nucleotide at a specific position in the genome. Although certain definitions require the substitution to be present in a sufficiently lar ...

s (SNP): i.e. Arctic wolves could be distinguished by having three wolves in the putative population with a specific SNP, whereas another subspecies could be distinguished by having 20 wolves with that SNP. Wayne furthermore stated that he believed the

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

in which the wolf happened to be found was a good enough characteristic to distinguish a subspecies.

Behaviour

The Arctic wolf is relatively unafraid of people, and can be coaxed to approach people in some areas.Mech, L. D.
Arctic Wolves and Their Prey
''

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

'', May 30, 2007 The wolves on Ellesmere Island do not fear humans, which is thought to be due to them seeing humans so little, and they will approach humans cautiously and curiously. Otto Sverdrup wrote that during the Fram expedition, a pair of wolves shadowed one of his teammates, who kept them at a distance by waving his ski pole.Sverdrup, O. N., (1918),
New land; four years in the Arctic regions
', Vol. I, London Longmans, Green, pp. 431–432 In 1977, a pair of scientists were approached by six wolves on Ellesmere Island, with one animal leaping at one of the scientists and grazing a cheek. A number of incidents involving aggressive wolves have occurred in

Alert, Nunavut Alert, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada, is the northernmost continuously inhabited place in the world, ("Twice a year, the military resupply Alert, the world's northernmost settlement.") on Ellesmere Island (Queen Elizabeth Island ...

, where the wolves have lived in close proximity to the local weather station for decades and became habituated to humans. One of these wolves attacked 3 people, was shot, and tested positive for rabies. 09 North Pole Wolf

Very little is known about the movement of the Arctic wolves, mainly due to climate. The only time at which the wolf migrates is during the wintertime when there is complete darkness for 24 hours. This makes Arctic wolf movement hard to research. About south of the High Arctic, a wolf movement study took place in the wintertime in complete darkness, when the temperature was as low as . The researchers found that wolves prey mainly on the muskoxen. There is no available information of the wolves' movements where the muskoxen were.

Diet

In the wild, Arctic wolves primarily prey on muskoxen and Arctic hares. They have also been found to prey on lemmings,

caribou Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...

, Arctic foxes, birds, and beetles. It has been also found that Arctic wolves scavenge through garbage. This sort of food source will not always be found in the Arctic wolf's diet because of regional and seasonal availability. Sometimes there is debate whether the muskox or the Arctic hare is the primary prey for the hare-wolf-muskox predator-prey system. Studies provide evidence that the muskoxen are indeed their primary prey because wolf presence and reproduction seems to be higher when muskox is more available than higher hare availability. More supporting evidence suggests that muskoxen provide long-term viability and other ungulates do not appear in the wolf's diet. Evidence suggesting that Arctic wolves depend more on hares claims that the mature wolf population paralleled the increase of hares rather than muskoxen availability. The study goes on to say that degree of reliance between the two sources of food is uncertain and that the amount of consumption between the two species depends on the season and year. Debate continues when seasonal and diet of young wolves is discussed. According to one study, muskox calves serve as a primary food source because the needs of pups are greater but another study suggests that "when hares were much more plentiful (Mech, 2000), wolves commonly fed them to their pups during summer." These differences may be attributed to location as well.

Polar bear The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the largest extant bear specie ...

s are rarely encountered by wolves, though there are two records of wolf packs killing polar bear cubs.

Conservation

The Arctic wolf is

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

, but it does face threats. In 1997, there was a decline in the Arctic wolf population and its prey, muskoxen (''

Ovibos moschatus The muskox (''Ovibos moschatus'', in Latin "musky sheep-ox"), also spelled musk ox and musk-ox, plural muskoxen or musk oxen (in iu, ᐅᒥᖕᒪᒃ, umingmak; in Woods Cree: ), is a hoofed mammal of the family Bovidae. Native to the Arctic, i ...

''), and Arctic hares (''Lepus arcticus''). This was due to unfavourable weather conditions during the summers for four years. Arctic wolf populations recovered the next summer when weather conditions returned to normal.

References

External links