Well, Arabian wolves — smallest of the world’s gray wolf subspecies — are native to various places besides Jordan.
But they are rare and their numbers are dwindling.
Perhaps, like me, you aren’t very familiar with Jordan the country, versus Jordan the name in international news.
Here is someone’s vlog of a trip to one of Jordan’s biosphere reserves (link does not equal endorsement; it came up in a general search and I liked it):
One reason I chose that video is because it is pretty and tells a story.
Today’s two wolf videos are sightings only, and this not a hulking gray timberwolf we’re talking about, dramatic, maned, and wooly.
Besides being small and lanky, Arabian wolves have very short hair and, like many desert-adapted mammals, big ears.
They also have become habituated to human surroundings (which has not done their red-list status one bit of good).
In these videos, you might think you’re watching a stray dog, but no — that’s a wild wolf, surviving as best it can in —
— Bahrain:
— and in Israel, where the photographer was lucky enough to record the Arabian wolf making a kill:
More information:
- Wikipedia page
- The Wolf Intelligencer page
- A paper (PDF) on the Arabian wolf shared by Jordan’s Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature
- Quiet tolerance in nature
Featured image: Ahmad Qarmish12 via Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Flight To Wonder 