The female wolves usually court, then mate when they are two years old, but the males court when they are one. The males and females court each other for around a year. The courting consists of playing, licking, and biting.
After the courting is over, they mate. In the South mating starts around February, but, because of the colder climate in the North, mating usually starts in March, the pups are always born 60-70 days later though.
A pack of wolves is a group of wolves that live together and hunt together. Baby wolves are called pups, and they live in packs that have as low as seven wolves in it, but as many as 25.
In the Summer, right before the pups are born, the pack makes a den in the side of a hill for the mother to have the pups in. There are usually 5-9 pups born at a time. Eleven to 15 days after they are born, their eyes open. A few days after their eyes open pups begin to get annoying and start pulling on their parents and other pack members. They are disciplined by getting gentle bites on their necks.
The pack helps baby-sit, feed and clean the pups. Eight to ten weeks after the pups are born, the pups are usually allowed to leave the small den that they have been living in. As a wolf grows, its place in the pack will be decided.
The leader of the pack is called the Alpha male, and his mate, is the Alpha female. The highest rank is the Alpha male, then the Alpha female, then the less strong wolves, and then the pups. The Alpha male of the pack is almost always the strongest and most fearless, so when the Alpha male gets scared, the other wolves in that pack are too. This arrangement helps prevent fighting among the pack. A wolf will not usually stay with the pack that it is born in its whole life.
After a wolf is ready to mate, it will leave the pack, find a mate, and make a pack with some other unmarried, or married wolves and they will make a pack together.
Whatever environment wolves are living in, they will live in a den. A den is a place in a hill, or in rocks where a wolf will live with its pack. Wolves make the dens by digging with their paws. They have a winter den, which is very warm, and a summer den.
As mentioned earlier, there is a small den that the pups spend their first few weeks of life in with their mother. This den is not shared by the rest of the pack, who by that time are in their summer den. In their dens, wolves sleep, sometimes even eat or play, though most of the eating is done where the animal was caught.
The Arctic wolf lives on the Tundra. In winter, which is almost the whole year in the Arctic, the ground is covered in snow. In the summer though, the ground has plants, berries, and lichen.
The pups start to develop their hunting skills by catching insects and small rodents. After a couple of weeks, to a month the mothers take their pups hunting.
The adults travel about 15-20 miles per day to find food for their family, and even after this great scavenge, they only catch food about 7% of the time that they try. Because of this, food is never wasted. One caribou can last up to three weeks of food.
Most animals that the wolf prey on are bigger and stronger than they are, so they have to plan attacks very carefully. Sometimes, for example, one wolf will get in front of a caribou to stop him, and then another wolf will come up behind him so that he can't move, and then, two more will attack from the sides. Wolf packs really aren't very vicious. They rarely attack humans.
Another one of their adaptations is that they have very good hearing. They can hear another wolf howl from five miles away. They can also hear their prey, like caribou, coming from far away. Wolves howl and bark to get other wolves that aren't in the pack away from their food, or out of their territory. Each wolf has a different sounding bark and howl.
They have about 20 top teeth, and 22 bottom teeth when they are full-grown.
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