Not Your Neighborhood Wolf

Saturday-Sunday, March 22-23, 2025

Not Your Neighborhood Wolf

Today’s special animal friend is the Maned Wolf, Chrysocyon brachyurus. This large canid, native to South America, is the only species in its genus. Its closest relative is the rare South American bush dog, Speothos venaticus. Along with other South American canids, these animals belong to the taxonomic “tribe” Cerdocyonina and are more closely related to wolves than to foxes.

The average maned wolf stands about 36 inches high at the shoulder and has a body length about 39 inches, plus an 18-inch tail. It lives in open habitats, mainly grasslands, in Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and some adjacent South American countries. Its legs, the longest of any wild canid, are adapted for movement through tall grass. Its coat is reddish brown to orangish with a distinct black mane which it can erect to enlarge its profile when threatened. It also has a white bib beneath its throat and a white-tipped tail.

The maned wolf’s urine has a very distinctive odor, often compared to skunk spray or marijuana smoke. The smell is produced by pyrazine, “a heterocyclic aromatic organic compound with the chemical formula C4H4N2. It is a symmetrical molecule with point group D2h.” (Business majors don’t have to take Organic Chem.) Pyrazine is also found in marijuana and related plants. The wolves use their urine to mark territories, hunting paths, and the buried remains of kills.

Unlike most large canids, maned wolves are solitary. They form pair bonds, but the couple live separate lives except when mating or nurturing young pups. They mate during November to April, the Southern Hemisphere summer, and two to six pups are born in about 60 days. They are fed by the parents, mainly the mother, for up to ten months. Infant mortality is high, and females may go two years between litters.

The maned wolf hunts by chasing down prey, mostly small mammals, digging up burrowing animals, and leaping to catch birds from the air. They also scavenge roadkill and the kills of other predators. Up to 50% of their diet is vegetable matter, including fruit, sugar cane, and roots. Analysis of their droppings and stomach contents has identified 116 plants and 178 animal species. A crucial food item is the “wolf apple,” Solanum lycocarpum, a tomato-like fruit; it can make up 90% of a wolf's diet in the rainy season. The plant is propagated largely through seeds transported in the wolves’ bowels. (These are eating a regular apple.)

The maned wolf is considered “Near Threatened” by IUCN and “vulnerable” to “endangered” by different South American countries. Its main predators are large cats, especially jaguars. They also suffer from vehicle impacts. Association with domestic and feral dogs has introduced many diseases to the maned wolf population. More than 3,000 are kept in captivity worldwide, and both the U.S. and the European Union are actively involved in breeding to support the species’s long-term survival.