Difference Between Wolf and Wolverine

Wolf vs Wolverine
 

Wolf and wolverine are two very different animals from two distinct taxonomic groups. However, due to the alikeness of the sound of their common names, some people might think wolf and wolverine are similar type of animals, or even same animal. Sometimes there are instances with wolves being referred as wolverine because of the same reason. Therefore, it would rather be meaningful to perform a fair comparison with some brief information about the both animals in order to understand the differences between wolf and wolverine as in this article.

Wolf

Wolves are the largest extant wild members of the Family: Canidae. They are entirely wild animals and have been extremely difficult to domesticate. Wolves are highly intelligent animals with an exceptionally well-developed sense of smell, which is about 100 times more than that of a human. They are social predators and live in families. Pack is the referred term for an assemblage of wolves. Wolves are famous for their pack hunting, in which the pack follows the prey and surround so that the prey has no option but to fight alone for survival against a hungry and aggressive wolf pack. Wolves can usually run fast for a longer time, which is very useful for their predatory lifestyle. They have well adapted teeth for predation with sharp canines and molars. They are hard to train and aggressive animals. The muzzle is long in wolves, so that they can give a deep and hard bite on the prey. An interesting fact about wolves is that they rarely bark, but often howl in a spine-tingling frequency. Wolves shed their coat twice a year; they shed the winter coat in the spring and grow the short haired summer coat, and they shed that before the winter.

Wolverine

Wolverine has many common names; it is known as glutton, carcajou, skunk bear and some other names as well apart from their zoological or scientific name, Gulogulo. Wolverine is a type of weasels, which means they are one of the members of the Family: Mustelidae. In addition, wolverine is the largest land living animal among all the members of the family. Their natural distribution range is the Arctic and Subarctic regions of the Northern hemisphere including North American, European, and Asian continents. Wolverine has a stocky and muscular body and their body weights could range from nine to25 kilograms. They are medium to large sized dogs and the measurement between the nose and the base of the tail varies from 67 to 107 centimetres. However, their tail is short and only about one fourth of the body length. Interestingly, their females are considerably larger than the males unlike in many mammals. Wolverine live on snow and their large padded paws with five toes on each paw are adaptations to walk on that slippery habitat. Despite having large paws, the legs of wolverines are short. The broad head, small eyes, and round ears demonstrate some of the characteristic features of wolverines. Additionally, their small round ears do not permit much heat to be lost as an adaptation for the cold environments that they live. Their coat of fur is oily and dark coloured (mostly towards black colour) with brown shadings on the dorsal and the lateral sides. In addition, their silvery facial marks are noticeable. It is very interesting to notice their aggressiveness, and they make excellent hunters, they can even kill large prey animals such as moose and elk.