ETHIOPIAN WOLFFeatured in the "Hunters and Hunted" episode of Life.
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Photos: Pictures from the "Hunters and Hunted" episode.
HowStuffWorks: What is a wolf pack mentality? The only wolf species currently residing in Africa first arrived on the continent courtesy of a looming ice age in Eurasia. Although the slender, long-legged Ethiopian wolves share a genetic link with their gray wolf ancestors, as well as a familiar climate, the food sources differ dramatically from the caribou and moose of Europe. For the Ethiopian wolf, surviving in a new land meant adapting to new prey.
LONE WOLF BY DAY
In the grasslands and heathlands of Ethiopia's mountains, fewer than 500 Ethiopian wolves currently subsist on a diet primarily comprising small, diurnal rodents, particularly the mole rat. Ethiopian wolves, much like gray wolves and other canids, live in packs of three to 13 animals, centered on a dominant female. Unlike their European predecessors, Ethiopian wolves hunt alone, rather than collaboratively.
At dawn, they patrol the borders of their territory as a group, but then each member of the pack — with the exception of the dominant female and her young — fans out to hunt alone. They spend the daylight hours in an individual quest for food, stalking small prey in the open or cunningly digging rodents out of their burrows, as captured in Life. The Ethiopian wolf's smaller, lighter build — males weigh on average 35 pounds (16 kilograms), while gray wolves may weigh up to 85 pounds (38 kilograms) — assists in these solitary hunting efforts, allowing them to hug the ground and stealthily creep up on unsuspecting prey. These traits would prove less useful if Ethiopian wolves still engaged in pack hunting, attempting to bring down large prey by working together.
WOLF PACK MENTALITY
But even after a long day of lonely hunting, the bonds of community run deep and strong for Ethiopian wolves. Each night, the members of the pack regroup around their matriarch, the sole breeder and undisputed alpha female, bringing her the sustenance she needs to care for her offspring. The adult hunters even regurgitate food to feed the pups during their first several months of life and may provide food for the young wolves for up to a year after their birth.
Although mating often occurs outside the pack, avoiding the problem of inbreeding, very few wolves disperse from the packs of their birth. To them, every aspect of life centers on the pack, evidenced by the willingness of these lone hunters to relinquish some of their hard-won nourishment in order to contribute to the common good.
Written by Chelsea Hedquist, HowStuffWorks
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