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Post by Chaos's Grave on Oct 23, 2005 19:56:18 GMT -5
A far cry from the evil, slavering man-eating beast of legend, the wolf is actually one of the most intelligent and sociable of animals, living and hunting in a family based pack. Wolves are extremely shy of humans and will go to great lengths to avoid them. Discounting occasions in history where hungry wolves are said to have raided the aftermath of battlefields to eat human carrion, and the occasional attack by a rabid wolf deprived of it's normal sense, wolves are nothing like the malevolent man-eaters they are sometimes portrayed to be.
All domestic dogs, from the German Shepherd to the poodle are descended from the wolf. The earliest ancestors of the wolf are thought to have been members of the prehistoric, tree-dwelling, Miacoidea family that lived during the Eocene period (54-38 million years ago). These creatures had spreading paws, distinctive carnassial teeth, long bodies, short limbs and resembled the modern civet (a memeber of the cat family) in shape. A couple of examples of these animals are the Hesperocyon from North America and Cynodictis from Europe. Towards the end of the Eocene period and through the Oligocene and Miocene periods (38-7 million years ago) the Miacoidea eventually became ground-dwelling animals. One of the earliest creatures recognised as a wolf is known as the 'Dire wolf' and lived in the Pleistocene period (2 million year ago). It was half as large again as the modern wolf.
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