Why do wolves howl at the moon? Why not at the sun?

Friends who have watched the animated film "Zootopia" know that when Judy Nick sneaked into the "enemy interior", he was almost discovered by the patrolling wolf guards.

At the critical moment, Nick pinched his throat and imitated the wolf howl, and the wolf guards were infected one by one and howled at the moon one after another. The two of them successfully escaped from danger and successfully sneaked into the mental hospital to rescue their companions.

Image source: Screenshot from Zootopia

The question is, why do wolves like to howl at the moon?

Call of the WildCommunicate with your companions

Animals in nature have their own unique habits, and wolves are no exception. Wolves are carnivores, and most of the time they like to catch small animals such as rabbits and pheasants, and sometimes they hurt people. They have a large appetite and can eat dozens of pounds of meat at a time; of course, they also have a strong ability to endure hunger. If they are full in one meal, they will not have to worry for weeks.

Wolves like to hunt at night. After dusk, hungry wolves will go out to hunt, howling as they walk. As we all know, the calls of most animals are communication signals to contact each other, and wolves will make different calls in different situations.

The most common howling by wolves is at night, usually to call their companions.

For example, female wolves often howl to call their cubs; when hungry, wolf pups will also make sharp calls to call their female wolves; male wolves will call female wolves to gather before going out hunting; during the breeding season, wolves will also howl to find their ideal mates.

Many literary works like to describe the night scene of the wilderness like this: "On a clear, starry night, with a bright moon in the sky, a wolf on the hillside looks up and howls, as if it is a symbol of loneliness." In fact, this is just people's romantic imagination. It is very likely that the wolf is expelling a strange lone wolf that has entered its territory.

So the wolves don't like to howl at the moon as we imagine, but people can clearly see and photograph the howling wolves when there is a bright moon. Add to that subjective imagination, and you will think that the wolves are howling at the moon.

Scientists have something to say

For many years, researchers have been devoted to studying the howling of wolves. Researchers with captive wolves were surprised to find that the pattern of wolf howls is inextricably linked to the size of the pack and whether the alpha wolf is present. Researchers boldly speculate that perhaps wolf howls are not simply a means of exchanging information.

In 2008, cognitive behaviorist Langer of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna raised nine wolves at the Wolf Science Institute. These wolf cubs, who had never experienced the "beatings" of nature, had no hunting skills at all, but they would still howl regardless of the occasion.

When the pups were 6 weeks old, Ranger took them for a walk. Every time he took one away, the remaining pups would start howling. The reason for this is that captive wolves do not have a natural family, so they spontaneously formed a hierarchical wolf pack, and each wolf had a "favorite" with whom they could play, groom each other, and sleep together.

To verify his idea, in the next few weeks, Ranger took each wolf away. Each one was randomly selected before the walk. Every time the little wolf left for less than 20 minutes, the wolf pack began to stir, but the one taken away did not respond in most cases.

Later, they found that when the leader left, the wolf pack howled the most. And when a wolf's "favored object" left, it howled even more happily. Based on this, Ranger believes that wolf howling indirectly reflects the social relationship between wolves.

At this time, someone asked whether the howling was caused by anxiety. So Ranger collected the wolf's saliva and measured the concentration of epidermal hormones, and found that anxiety and howling were not always linked. Although the wolves were very anxious when the alpha wolf left, this was not the case when the mate left. Although they howled constantly, they were obviously not very anxious.

So it is not difficult to see that the howling of wolves is not mindless impulse, but planned. They are trying to contact important wolf pack roles through howling and bring the wolf pack together.

This is consistent with the view put forward by Dave Maker, a wolf biologist at the University of Minnesota, after observing wolf packs in 1996: "The main reason for wolf howling is indeed to gather the pack after hunting." At that time, he tracked 15 wolves in the wild and found that they could use howling to instantly integrate the loose formation at the end of the hunt.

But John Seiberg of the University of Waterloo pointed out that it is unscientific to extrapolate the behavior of animals in the wild based on the behavior of captive animals. Wild wolves can track pack members by scent, so howling in the wild may have other purposes.

Wolves hunting

Even today, there is still much to explore about why wolves howl.

The evolution of animals' amazing skills and the secrets of their populations have been topics that humans have been exploring for many years. Perhaps in the near future, researchers will be able to successfully solve the problem and lead us to a glimpse of the truth.

END

**Audit expert: ** Wu Lei, national practicing veterinarian.

Tadpole Musical Notation original article

Editor: Xiaoxi Tushuo