There are different meanings to “coyote vs. wolf” and we’re going to look at two of them today, via guest contributions:

1. How Stuff Works has this excellent article on how to tell coyotes and wolves apart.
2. This video looks at wolves and coyotes facing off in Yellowstone:

Of course, with such closely related canids, there are other options besides “versus” — but Dr. Wikipedia notes that problems can arise.

For instance:

…Extensive hunting of gray wolves over a period of 400 years caused a population decline that reduced the number of suitable mates, thus facilitating coyote genes swamping into the eastern wolf population. This has caused concern over the purity of remaining wolves in the area, and the resulting eastern coyotes are too small to substitute for pure wolves as apex predators of moose and deer.[17]

The main nucleus of pure eastern wolves is currently concentrated within Algonquin Provincial Park. This susceptibility to hybridization led to the eastern wolf being listed as Special Concern under the Canadian Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife and with the Committee on the Status of Species at Risk in Ontario. By 2001, protection was extended to eastern wolves occurring on the outskirts of the park, thus no longer depriving Park eastern wolves of future pure-blooded mates. By 2012, the genetic composition of the park’s eastern wolves was roughly restored to what it was in the mid-1960s, rather than in the 1980s–1990s, when the majority of wolves had large amounts of coyote DNA.[17]

Aside from the combinations of coyotes and eastern wolves making up most of the modern day eastern coyote’s gene pools, some of the coyotes in the northeastern United States have mild domestic dog (C. lupus familiaris) and western Great Plains gray wolf (C. l. nubilus) influences in their gene pool, suggesting that the eastern coyote is actually a four-in-one hybrid of coyotes, eastern wolves, western gray wolves, and dogs…

This video from Mt. Tom, in Massachusetts, was uploaded eight years ago. It labels these canids “coyotes” —

— but I have to agree with the commenter who sees wolf-like qualities, too, and suggests that they are hybrids.

Life finds SO many ways that it sometimes makes your head spin!

Some lagniappe:

Meanwhile, in Vegas…

Uploaded a year ago. You can take a domesticated young animal out of the domestic setting, but you cannot take domestication out of the animal. It’s true of feral cat kittens, too. ❤

Featured image: Steve Schlaeger/Shutterstock