What kind of animal is this strange guy? At a glance, the head resembles a fox and the limbs resemble a deer, is it a hybrid born of the legendary cross of deer and fox? Your genetics professor will tell you that this is impossible, that deer and foxes have parted ways for too long, that one eats grass and the other eats meat, and it is obviously impossible to relive the dream.
This guy is the largest canine in South America, called the maned wolf, and although it does resemble a wolf, it is not a close relative of the wolf, but the only species in the genus Canine mane wolf. The maned wolf has a cousin, the Falkland Wolf, who shared a common ancestor 7 million years ago, and unfortunately, the Falkland Wolf is extinct.
That is to say, the relationship between the maned wolf and the wolf goes back at least 7 million years, just as humans and chimpanzees were separated about 7 million years ago, and since chimpanzees cannot be called human, the maned wolf is certainly not a wolf.
The maned wolf is thought to have mixed fox and deer genes because its head and red fur really resemble a fox, and its limbs are thin and long, making it the tallest wild canine in the world, and its movements are as graceful as a deer, rather than as obscene as a wolf.
Maned wolves are about 90 centimeters tall and weigh 20 to 25 kilograms, which is indeed inferior to wolves, which makes their behavior habits very different from wolves. Maned wolves are not social animals, often alone, when the love sinus first opened, if they met the other half of the favorite, they would marry, act together, and feed offspring, generally a litter can produce 2 to 6.
The diet of the maned wolf is also very different from that of the wolf, more than 50% of their food is fruits and plants, and they hunt rats, hares, birds and even fish during the tooth sacrifice. In the past, people did not understand their habits, thinking that they were wolves, and after being caught in the zoo, they were served with big fish and meat, resulting in them often getting kidney stones and not wanting to die.
Like other canines, maned wolves socialize through urine, which is used to mark hunting paths and places to bury their prey. The maned wolf's urine smells very unique, a bit like hops or cannabis, which may come from pyrazine in the plants they eat. Someone once reported to the police at the Rotterdam Zoo smelling of marijuana, and the police went out to arrest people, but the people were not caught, but rushed to the maned wolf house.
The love of the maned wolf, like other canines, begins with a beautiful smell of the ass, and when the smell is similar, it begins to greet me and then the exchange of genetic material, which usually takes 15 minutes. This is also understandable, after all, once a year or even two years, of course, more emphasis on quality, rather than like some people, 365 days a year can be, so always perfunctory.
Unfortunately, the maned wolf was once distributed in a large area of South America, but now it has become extinct in Uruguay, Argentina and other places, and there are only populations in southern Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia on the eastern side of the Andes, and the IUCN has now listed it as a near-threatened species, and the future seems to be not optimistic.