The Ultimate Wolf Quiz

The Vikings wore wolf skins and drank wolf blood to take on the wolf’s spirit in battle. They also viewed real wolves as battle companions.

Pups have baby-blue eyes at birth which change to yellow when they are eight months old.

A light-reflecting layer on a wolf’s eye causes a wolf’s eyes to glow in the dark and may also facilitate night vision.

Wolves run on their toes, which helps them to stop and turn quickly and to prevent their paw pads from wearing down.

A wolf can smell you and other animals more than a mile away. While humans have about 5 million scent cells, wolves have 40 times as many, with about 200 million scent cells.

They need to smell the mother's milk and taste it to survive. However, they apparently don't need (as they are not born with) the ability to see or hear. They only weigh about one pound at birth.

Crunch a tree branch underfoot, and a wolf can hear it as far as six miles away in the forest and ten miles on the open tundra, under certain conditions of course.

The business end of the wolf, its jaw, is powerful with crushing pressure of nearly 1,500 pounds per square inch. Their jaw contains 42 teeth specialized for stabbing, shearing, and crunching bones.

A hungry wolf can eat 20 pounds of meat in a single meal. Just think about how one pound of hamburger meat can make five burgers. So 20 pounds is like you're sitting down to a meal of one hundred burgers.

Wolves can not only swim, they can swim greater distances than normal people – up to 8 miles! They have small webs between their toes making it easier to stay afloat.

Unlike other animals, wolves have a variety of facial expressions they use to communicate and maintain order and unity within the pack.

A normal wolf pack has a mom, dad, and offspring. However, a pack can also be as big as 20 to 30 wolves.

A wolf can run about 20 miles per hour, and up to 40 miles per hour when chasing prey. However they can only maintain that speed for a minute or two. When they ease up to 5 mph, they can “dog trot” all day at this speed.

The wolf pack has strong family bonds. Once the male and female mate they usually stay together for life, forming their own pack. They are devoted parents.

Since wolves hunt together in packs, raise their young, and protect their territory, they need various ways to communicate. They do more than howl, they whimper and whine, growl and bark, yelp and snarl.

Wolves communicate through body language and through scent to convey messages to other pack members and other packs that pass through its territory.

This posture is usually displayed when one wolf is confidently approaching another wolf. However if the wolf approaches in a slinking manner, with its body lowered, tail between its legs, and ears flattened, it is scared of the other wolf.

This "play" position is similar to a display by dogs. However, if a wolf furrows its forehead, shows its fangs, or growls, it so communicating that it is angry.

Young wolves stay in their parents' pack for at least two years before some of them take off to join other packs or to start their own.

There is a rational reason behind this old wives tale. Although wolves don’t howl at the moon, wolves howl more when the moon is full and bright.

A wolves' howl is used as a way to call to another pack or to warn of danger. Wolves also howl to contact separated members of their group and to rally the group before hunting.

Although a female is only pregnant for 62 to 75 days, they are only able to conceive once a year. Thus, only one litter of pups are born each spring.

An average litter size for gray and red wolves is 4 to 6 pups, but sometimes fewer pups are born if food is scarce and sometimes more are born if prey is abundant.

The siblings that are the same age play with each other, while the older wolf siblings care for their younger brothers and sisters by finding them food.

Genetically, wolves and dogs are 98.8 percent identical. The Afghan Hound, one of the oldest domestic breeds, and the Alaskan Malamute and Siberian Husky both have wolf-like appearances. These dogs and a few other breeds are the most closely related.

We wish these majestic creatures lived longer, but the average life span is 6 to 8 years. Some wolves can breed as young as age 2, whereas other wolves do not breed until 4 or 5 years of age. For those late bloomers, they may only have one litter of pups in their lifetime.

Wolves' favorite prey is hoofed animals such as deer, elk, moose, caribou and bison. Since many of these animals are larger than wolves, the only way wolves can catch them is to coordinate their pack to hunt them.

When you're hungry, you can't be picky. So small game like rabbits or even salmon will do. Depending on the amount of food available, wolves will even eat earthworms, berries and grasshoppers!

Their meals can last! An adult can go 12 days -- sometimes more -- without food. Did you know that wolves also eat grass when their stomach is upset, much like a dog?

In India, simple wolf traps are still used. These traps consist of a simple pit, disguised with branches or leaves. The wolves fall in and people then stone them to death.

Wolves aren't specifically hunted by anything other than people. However there are animals that pose threats to them, such as mountain lions, which can prey on small wolf pups. But no animal, except humans, specifically prey on them.

Each wolf howls for only about five seconds, but howls can seem much longer when the entire pack joins in. A lone wolf will howl to attract mates or just because he is alone.

Where there are wolves, there are often ravens. These aggravating birds try to grab some of the kill by diving at the wolves or pecking at their tails so the wolf will chase them and leave the kill.

Most people would think the answer is werewolf or a wolf, but the answer is vampire. This may be because the idea of a werewolf came later in Greek folklore.

The smallest wolves live in the Middle East, where they may weigh only 30 pounds. The largest wolves are found in Canada, Alaska, and the Soviet Union, where they can reach up to 175 pounds.