Red wolf

The red wolf (Canis rufus) is a subspecies of wolf. It is an endangered species of wolf from Eastern North America.

Red wolf Temporal range: 10,000 Years-Present
Conservation status
Critically Endangered (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Canidae
Genus:	Canis
Species:	Canis lupus
Trinomial name
Canis lupus rufus Audubon & Bachman, 1851

Red wolves were declared extinct in the wild in 1980 after the few remaining wild wolves were placed in a captive breeding program. Reintroduced to the wild in 1987 in northeastern North Carolina, red wolves began to recover, but the population is rapidly diminishing as of late 2016.

The red wolf is smaller than a gray wolf and larger than a coyote. It is slender and long-legged, and it lives in the wild only on the Albemarle Peninsula in North Carolina. It hunts small mammals, rodents, and white-tailed deer.

There is a lot of controversy about its taxonomy, which is not settled yet.

Red Wolf Media

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  Red wolf (Canis rufus) at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo, Syracuse, New York.

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  Historical range of the red wolf

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  Melanistic red wolf at Audubon Park, New Orleans (1931)

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  USFWS worker with red wolf pups, August 2002

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  Comparative image of a red wolf and a western coyote (C. latrans incolatus)

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  Audubon's depiction of the red wolf (1851)

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  Skulls of North American canines, with the red wolf in the center

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  Diagram of Wolf Evolution*Gray wolf/Eastern wolf/Red wolf/Coyote

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  RedWolf()