The Greenland Wolf is a subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

 of the gray wolf

Gray Wolf

The gray wolf , also known as the wolf, is the largest extant wild member of the Canidae family...

, Canis lupus, that resides in Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

.

Size

The subspecies is described as being small to medium in stature, but extremely light in weight. However, this understanding of the size of the Greenland Wolf is derived from only five specimens that were caught in winter

Winter

Winter is the coldest season of the year in temperate climates, between autumn and spring. At the winter solstice, the days are shortest and the nights are longest, with days lengthening as the season progresses after the solstice.-Meteorology:...

, so their light weight could be attributed to malnutrition

Malnutrition

Malnutrition is the condition that results from taking an unbalanced diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess , or in the wrong proportions....

.

Subspecies controversy

Because of its close proximity to the range of the Arctic wolf

Arctic Wolf

The Arctic Wolf , also called Polar Wolf or White Wolf, is a subspecies of the Gray Wolf, a mammal of the family Canidae. Arctic Wolves inhabit the Canadian Arctic, Alaska and the northern parts of Greenland....

, the Greenland Wolf has commonly been disputed as being a truly separate subspecies

Subspecies of Canis lupus

Canis lupus has 39 subspecies currently described, including two subspecies of domestic dog, Canis lupus dingo and Canis lupus familiaris, and many subspecies of wolf throughout the Northern hemisphere...

. Most biologists

Biologist

A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...

 accept the fact that the Greenland Wolf migrated from Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 by crossing the frozen sea ice between the two regions, an activity that is often documented in modern times when the Nares Strait

Nares Strait

Nares Strait is a waterway between Ellesmere Island and Greenland that is the northern part of Baffin Bay where it meets the Lincoln Sea. From south to north, the strait includes Smith Sound, Kane Basin, Kennedy Channel, Hall Basin and Robeson Channel...

 freezes. One of the major problems in properly classifying the Greenland Wolf lies in the fact that the wolf population is very low in Greenland and it is difficult to find and document the subspecies at all. Because of this, there are no proper studies that have been conducted that can be compared to other studies done on North American

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 wolves.

History

The original evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

 of the Greenland Wolf appears to have come about from a predecessor to modern northern wolf subspecies, of which a pack or number of packs became stranded on Peary Land

Peary Land

Peary Land is a peninsula in northern Greenland, extending into the Arctic Ocean. It reaches from Victoria Fjord in the west to Independence Fjord in the south and southeast, and to the Arctic Ocean in the north, with Cape Morris Jesup, the northernmost point of Greenland's mainland, and Cape...

 in northern Greenland, due to the Wisconsin glaciation

Wisconsin glaciation

The last glacial period was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 10,000 years ago....

 period. After the ice sheets had receded, the subspecies began moving south into the rest of Greenland and also west onto the Queen Elizabeth Islands

Queen Elizabeth Islands

The Queen Elizabeth Islands are the northernmost cluster of islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, split between Nunavut and Northwest Territories in Northern Canada.-Geography:...

.

External links

• "Annotated bibliography of Quaternary vertebrates of northern North America" - Google Books
• http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:gNaJp6uyyosJ:pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic50-4-349.pdf+%22Greenland+wolf%22&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj_y0jIbFxQTs0DZCWcgYTwfl55mGI0X7L43ENehGol3e1Ln8aVuta20MAmqStMJFb5SVkCPC2p0QqWOX8gBEcuD2BvtR2eIbTlstk3UsGG4_O-_9SElVk7mebbpE4BK1TGr0A4&sig=AHIEtbS5PpoDXAFA1Je3MiaQuIaQrV67wA"Endoparasites of Arctic Wolves in Greenland" - Arctic Vol. 50 No. 4 (December 1997)]
• "Explorations into the world of Lewis and Clark" - Google Books