Wolves (Canis lupus) are extremely intelligent organisms that communicate through body language, scent, and vocals. They live across the globe, but are most heavily concentrated in North America, including many Canadian and Alaskan territories.The pack is a social hierarchy beginning with the leaders, also known as the alphas. The alphas are usually the oldest, largest, strongest, and most intelligent male and female wolves in the pack. However, any wolf can become an alpha, but they need to find an unoccupied territory and a member of the opposite sex. To communicate dominance in the pack the alphas stand tall and hold their tails high. Less dominate wolves hold their bodies low to the ground and hold their tails down while pawing at the higher ranking wolves.
There are two kinds of submissive behavior: active and passive. Active submission is a contact activity in which signs of lower ranking are evident such as crouching, muzzle licking, and tail tucking. These behaviors are first seen in pups to "elicit" regurgitation in adults. These behaviors are retained into adulthood by lower ranking wolves, where they function as ways to show the alphas they know they are lower in rank. Passive submission is when a subordinate wolf is on its side and shows its underside to the alpha. Sometimes the subordinate wolf will allow the alpha to sniff its genitalia, but if the alpha disagrees with the subordinate, teeth may be shown between the two. Most of the time the lower wolf will back down to avoid a fight.
Wolves have a sense of smell 100 times greater than humans. They use this sense of communication to do a behavior called scent-marking. Using scat and urine wolves mark the perimeters are their territories. When a passing wolf comes into contact with these scents they know that this territory is off limits. Wolves also use chemical messages to communicate. They have an array of pheromones that are released from their toes, tail, eyes, anus, genitalia, and skin. Males can tell when a female is going into estrus by the scent of her pheromones. Their sense of smell also lets them know when enemies and food is near.
Vocals are a huge part of wolves and they way they live. Howling, barking, whimpering, and growling are the main types of vocalizations. Howling can happen all day, but is most likely to be heard in the evenings when wolves are most active. It is used to communicate over large distances to either gather the pack or keep the pack together and invaders away. Growling and barking are used for warnings. Whimpering is used by a mother wanting her pups to nurse or by a subordinate to communicate "I give up" if in a confrontation with a dominate wolf.
Wolves are very beautiful and intelligent creatures and should be treasured. Humans should learn about social structures and ways of communicating signals through body language. A lot can be learned from the pack and it's only a howl away.
Sources:
http://www.wolf.org/wolves/learn/basic/biology/communication.asp
http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/vecase/behavior/Spring2003/Bergeron/habitat.htm
Posted by Em Arsenault
Someone that separates wolves from many other animals is their form of social hierarchy. Similar hierarchies can be seen in insects and even humans. I'm sure we are researching their social structures and forms of communication because we can learn a lot about the evolution of the species and just how complex their communication really is. However, scientists everywhere can delve deeper into about every subject matter there is to know, because there is always a need of information.
ReplyDeletePosted by Michael Shi
One part of this article jumped out at me after watching "Signals for Survival". It says that wolves use a submissive behavior, muzzle licking, that was once used as pups to elicit regurgitation in adult wolves. We saw a similar morphing of a feeding behavior in the young of Herring Gulls.
ReplyDeletePosted by Michael Thomas
We briefly touched on wolf communication on Thursday and how we see the same facial expressions that wolves use in domesticated dogs. From what you wrote it is very clear that there are a lot of similarities between the two species. While this may seem obvious, I was surprised that domesticated dogs haven't lost some of these instincts, such as marking their territory. You may not know the answer to this, but if many domesticated dogs of the same breed were raised together, would a pack form naturally with an alpha male and all? Just something to think about, I wonder if any studies have been done on it?
ReplyDeletePosted by Janelle Hayes
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ReplyDeleteBeing a dog owner, I've definitely seen these types of behaviours before. My parent's yorkies have exhibited all of the submissive behaviours you explained above at some point or another. My father seems to be their alpha male. It just goes to show how even animal's we think we have domesticated so well will still retain so much of their own natural behaviour.
ReplyDeletePosted by Rhys Ursuliak
The similarity these signals have to dog signals makes me curious about interspecies communication. Are these similar signals enough to pass messages effectively from dog to wolves, or does the context of a different species presenting them change their meaning?
ReplyDelete-Joey Needleman
This was a great subject to choose- I love wolves! The submissive active behaviors that start in wolves as pups asking their mothers to regurgitate food, specifically the crouching, reminded me of the gull behavior of head ducking that elicits the same response. My favorite thing about the wolf is its pack dynamic. One wolf can spend it's whole life as a subordinate, but if that wolf is killed in the wild, the whole pack will feel it's absence and mourn their companion. Every member of the pack is important and needed. I like the idea that Professor Houlihan had about interspecies communication. We see wolf hybrids all the time, where a domestic dog has mated with a roaming wolf, so we know that they are able to communicate enough to breed. It is actually surprising to me that domestic dogs have not lost more of their ancestral behaviors, with their evolution being so human- oriented and, at least in single dog households, thir main communication being with humans.
ReplyDeletePosted by Chelsea Van Thof
Wolves are so fascinating to me and I think they are beautiful. I also think the pack dynamic is something really interesting and so organized. The pack relies totally on one another but is based on individual strength for leadership. I recently watched a rerun of an Animal Planet show called Growing Up Wolf where a biologist was working on reintroducing pups to her captive wolf pack (at a sanctuary of course). The pack leader was an alpha female who easily could have killed the pups because they were not hers. To be safe, the pups were introduced through a fence. The pups, who had not been in contact with other wolves since their birth, immediately started displaying the signs of submission such as whimpering and snout licking and had their tails tucked in. It was amazing that the pups innately knew how to behave in order to survive near the alpha wolf. There was a happy ending to the show and the pups joined the pack!
ReplyDeleteI appreciate all the positive comments on my blog. I have a strong passion for wolves and thought I would show case that through this assignment. Wolves have always intrigued me and sometimes I think of myself as one. Sounds strange, but when you think about it my reasons make sense. I believe that as an individual I am strong, but with my family or another group I am better. Wolves are the same; they are individually strong, but when they are with their pack they are much more of a unit. So for this assignment I saw it was very fitting to research wolves and let you all read about how similar they are to the herring gulls we watched about in 'Signals for Survival'. I look forward to reading your posts this coming week. =)
ReplyDeletePosted by Em Arsenault (1)