HOW TO DRAW A WOLF

Before learning how to draw a wolf, let us understand more about this animal.

The English 'wolf' stems from the Old English wulf, which is itself thought to be derived from the Proto-Germanic *wulfaz. The Latin lupus is a Sabine loanword. Both derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *wlqwos/*lukwos.

The species Canis lupus was first recorded by Carl Linnaeus in his publication Systema Naturae in 1758, with the Latin classification translating into the English words "dog wolf". The thirty-seven subspecies of Canis lupus are listed under the designated common name of "wolf" in Mammal Species of the World third edition that was published in 2005. The nominate subspecies is the Eurasian wolf (Canis lupus lupus), also known as the common wolf. The subspecies includes the domestic dog, dingo, eastern wolf and red wolf, but lists C. l. italicus and C. l. communis as synonyms of C. l. lupus. However, the classification of several as either species or subspecies has recently been challenged.

The evolution of the wolf occurred over a geologic time scale of 800,000 years, transforming the first Middle Pleistocene wolf specimen that is recognized as being morphologically similar to Canis lupus into today's dog, dingo, and gray wolf. Ecological factors including habitat type, climate, prey specialization and predatory competition will greatly influence the wolf's genetic population structure and cranio-dental plasticity. Wolves went through a population bottleneck 20,000 years before present (YBP), which indicates that many wolf populations had gone extinct at a time that coincided with the Last Glacial Maximum and the expansion of modern humans worldwide with their technology for capturing large game. The domestic dog is the most widely abundant large carnivore, and a descendant of one of those now-extinct wolf populations.

Hope you now understand a bit more about this animal. Download How To Draw A Wolf app and start drawing!