Nature
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We’ve seen Game Of Thrones and secretly dreamed about what it would be like to have an absolutely massive dire wolf as a pet. However, since the reality is that they’ve been extinct for over 10,000 years, we might have to content ourselves with some big wolf watching from a respectable distance. But exactly what species would we be gazing lovingly at? We delve into the biggest wolves in the world.
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Immediately, the wolf species debate gets a little controversial. Some suggest there are just two species of wolf: the gray wolf (Canis lupus) and the red wolf (Canis rufus). Others, however, throw a third or a fourth into the mix; the Eastern wolf (Canis lycaon) from North America and the Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis). Depending on which ones are counted, there are thought to be nearly 40 subspecies of wolf.
Which wolf species is the biggest?
Adult gray wolves are thought to be the biggest; females typically weigh between 23 to 55 kilograms (51 to 121 pounds) while the males are bigger, sometimes weighing up to 80 kilograms (176 pounds) and measuring around 76 centimeters (30 inches) tall at the shoulder.
Smaller than the gray is the red wolf, at roughly 66 centimeters (26 inches) at the shoulder, and ranging in weight from around 20 to 36 kilograms (45 to 80 pounds). Unlike the more widespread gray wolves, red wolves are found only in eastern North Carolina.
The Ethiopian wolf is the smallest of the group, only weighing 11 to 20 kilograms (24 to 42 pounds).
In Yellowstone National Park, a tracking device was placed on a male wolf known as 495M, as part of a longstanding tracking project. His weight is said to have been 65 kilograms (143 pounds), the largest wolf ever recorded in Yellowstone. According to the Guinness World Records, however, “the largest widely accepted grey wolf on record is an individual from the Yukon, Canada, that reportedly weighed 103 [kilograms] (227 [pounds]).”
Largest wolf ever
All of the above are the biggest living wolves, but what was the biggest wolf that ever lived?
The dire wolf (Canis dirus) was said to be around the size of the largest gray wolves, with a shoulder height of 97 centimeters (38 inches) and weighing around 59 to 68 kilograms (130 to 150 pounds), with heads that were much larger than those of grey wolves compared to their body size – though some argue they were not really wolves at all.
Dogs
While these wolves roam wild, there's space for a brief mention of the dogs (Canis familiaris) that humans have bred to be larger and taller than even these wolves. The heaviest dog breeds are the Old English Mastiff and the St Bernard, which regularly top 77 to 91 kilograms (170 to 201 pounds) in weight. The title for the tallest dog breed, however, is held by the Great Dane; an individual named Zeus was the tallest dog ever at 1.118 meters (44 inches), but sadly died in 2014.
