Coywolf Facts
Coywolf Facts
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| Interesting Coywolf Facts: |
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| Coywolf can reach 4 to 5 feet in length and 35 to 45 pounds of weight. |
| Coywolf has thick coat that can be blondish or dark-blackish in color. |
| Coywolf has big skull, wide, powerful jaws, short, round ears, long legs and strong, wolf-like body (coywolf is larger than coyote, but smaller than wolf). |
| Coywolf is a carnivore. Its diet is based on the voles, mice, rabbits, woodchucks, white-tail deer, geese, ducklings and carrion. It occasionally consumes berries and nuts. |
| Coywolf is an apex predator. Unlike coyote, which is solitary hunter, coywolf hunts in organized groups - packs, like wolf. |
| Coywolf is social animal that lives in groups of 3 to 5 animals. |
| Coywolf produces loud (wolf-like) howls which gradually change into yipping sound (typical for coyote) for communication with other coywolves. |
| Coywolf reaches sexual maturity at the age of 2 years. Unlike many other hybrid animals, coywolf is fertile and it reproduces with ease in the wild. |
| Unlike the wolf, which can be found only in the wild, coywolf can be often seen in the rural, suburban and urban areas. |
| Researchers believe that coywolf is not dangerous to humans. However, feeding and contact with this animal should be avoided. |
| Coyotes are clever animals that managed to survive intentional killing (they were hunted as much as wolves) and learned to adapt to the changes in their environment without decrease in the population size. Coywolf inherited intelligence from the coyote. |
| Wolves are much stronger and more dominant predators and they kill coyotes when they meet them in the wild. However, uncontrolled hunting of wolves at the beginning of the 20th century led to drastic reduction in the number of these animals in the wild and they have been forced to mate with their close relatives (coyotes) when they were not able to find the member of their own species. |
| Recent DNA analysis suggests that genome of coywolf also contains traces of grey wolf and domestic dog. All in all, coywolf is roughly 1/4 wolf, 2/3 coyote, while the remaining genes belong to wild dog. |
| Cross-breeding of coyote with eastern wolf results in decrease in the (already low) number of genetically pure eastern wolves in the wild. |
| Coywolf has an average lifespan of 3 to 5 years in the wild and around 10 years in the urban areas. |
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Related Links: Facts Hybrid Animals Facts Animals Facts |