It's toasty outside now that I'm back in south Texas, so I'm thinking cool thoughts about this handsome fellow I met up at the Seneca Park Zoo in New York State a few days ago. He's an arctic grey wolf, Canus lupus arctos, the largest species of all wolves. Adult male arctic wolves can weigh over 100 pounds.
Even New York is too hot for this guy, though. He normally lives between the edge of North America and the North Pole, hunting for rabbits, caribou and musk ox.
He has a brilliant white coat that distinguishes him from his close cousin, the North American gray wolf, who was just removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species this past March.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, the arctic wolf is the only subspecies of wolf that has not yet been threatened, due to its isolation from humans in its native environment. As mines and oil pipelines encroach upon their territory and interrupt their food supply though, we may see arctic wolf numbers begin to decline.
You can read some interesting facts about Nikko, the Seneca Park Zoo arctic wolf, here.
