The wolf's most indispensable personality trait is the ability to exist as part of a group, to form an attachment to others of it's kind. Wolves are social animals of the first order. The presence of an understood hierarchy serves the crutial purpose of elimating conflict. This usually consists of a pack of five to ten wolves. The pack has a defined social structure, one that enhances their survival by collective hunting and population control. This hierarchy is subject to change, especially during breeding season.
In extreme cold the wolf can reduce the flow of blood near it's skin to conserve heat. When in contact with ice or snow, the temperature of the wolf's footpads remain at just above the tissue freezing point. The wolf's ability to regulate it's body temperature has helped it to survive in a wide variety of climates.
The wolf's front feet are much larger and a great advantage when running upon snow. It allows greater weight distribution and more support to prevent the wolf from sinking in as deeply, when the snow is soft.
A wolf's coat can vary from white to various shades of beige, brown, gray and black. It consists of two layers; a soft light colored, dense fur, covered by long guard hairs, which keep the undercoat dry. The shading of the fur, which is more distinctive around the face, accents the wolf's facial communication. In the late spring the wolf sheds his winter coat. The new hair that forms the short summer coat, continues to grow just enough to gradually form the long winter coat.L. David Mech
Wolves in warmer climates have shorter guard hairs and less dense undercoat. The red wolf, which lives in hot, humid areas, has a shorter coat and longer pointed ears, than the wolves of the north. Short ears are less sensitive to the cold, while long ears are efficient dissipaters of body heat.
Wolves breed once yearly, in February or March and four to six pups are born, sixty three days later. Usually, only the alpha pair breeds, although the entire pack assists in the raising of the pups. When a pup becomes sexually mature at two years, he may stay with the pack or start one of his own. When a wolf curls up at night, it uses it's bushy tail to cover it's feet and nose. The tail placed over the nose holds the warm air exhaled from the lungs over the feet and nose, warming them.
Social relationships are maintained by vocalization, and postural and facial expressions. Due to an understood dominance hiarchy, pack members rarely injure one another. Fatal encounters with other wolf packs are avoided by the use of territories with overlapping boundries, which are held by scent marking and howling.
Debra McCann
In an all too real display of its savage nature, the orange and black-striped killing machine is seen dispatching live farmyard animals placed in its enclosure by handlers while visitors look on at the feeding frenzy.
A kangaroo boxes with a man at the Animal Olympics
An Australian kangaroo receives a fierce blow to the head by a man dressed in a clown suit (pictured below) in a shameful contest that will further fuel fears over China's barbaric attitude to animals.
The bizarre marsupial-versus-human bout happened during the so-called Animal Olympics in Shanghai.
Animal rights campaigners say the Chinese have an appalling poor record for animal rights protection and have no laws to protect them.
In the fight, the Australian kangaroo appears to reel backwards after receiving a right hook from its garishly attired opponent.
But the 'roo, which was wearing boxing gloves on its front paws, fought back, grappling with the clown who was forced back towards the ropes by its onslaught.
The kangaroo is just one of 300 'athletes' taking part in the annual event, now in its fourth year, at the Shanghai Wild Animal Park.
The event held in a large arena also involves an elephant carrying the Olympic torch and various animals including zebras and mountain goats put through a series of events such as hurdles and races.
The image of Hale-Bopp to the left was taken by Phil Langill using the 16" telescope.
Comets are small, fragile, irregularly shaped bodies composed of a mixture of dust grains and frozen gases and are probably left over from the formation of the Solar System. They have highly elliptical orbits that bring them very close to the Sun and swing them deeply into space, often beyond the orbit of Pluto. Comet structures are diverse and very dynamic, but they all develop a surrounding cloud of diffuse material, called a coma, that usually grows in size and brightness as the comet approaches the Sun. Usually a small, bright nucleus (less than 10 km in diameter) is visible in the middle of the coma. The coma and the nucleus together constitute the head of the comet.
As comets approach the Sun they develop enormous tails of luminous material that extend for millions of kilometers from the head, away from the Sun. When far from the Sun, the nucleus is very cold and its material is frozen solid within the nucleus. In this state comets are sometimes referred to as a "dirty iceberg" or "dirty snowball," since over half of their material is ice. When a comet approaches within a few Astronomical Units (AU) of the Sun, the surface of the nucleus begins to warm, and volatiles evaporate. The evaporated molecules boil off and carry small solid particles with them, forming the comet's coma of gas and dust.
When the nucleus is frozen, it can be seen only by reflected sunlight. However, when a coma develops, dust reflects still more sunlight, and gas in the coma absorbs ultraviolet radiation and begins to fluoresce. At about 5 AU from the Sun, fluorescence usually becomes more intense than reflected light.
The image of Hyakutake to the left was taken by Phil Langill using the 16" telescope.
