Kidzone

You can't name a North American gray wolf that's more endangered than the Mexican gray wolf. There isn't one.

Right now, there are fewer than 230 Mexican gray wolves in the wild and about 300 in captivity. Widespread trapping and poisoning in the early to mid 1900s nearly made them extinct.

Mexican wolves live in the mountain forests and grasslands in remote areas of Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico.

Guess what? Mexican gray wolves are not totally gray. Their fur is a mix of gray, rust, black and buff, a color pretty close to vanilla ice cream.

The Mexican wolf weighs between 50 and 85 pounds, which is a little more than half the size of its northern cousin, the North American gray wolf and about the size of a German shepherd or Labrador retriever. It lives to the ripe, old age of 10.

Interesting social habits of Mexican gray wolves include tail wagging, howling, yipping, growling, playing, and marking territory with urine. Ewww!

The Mexican wolf never has to eat its vegetables! A wolf is a carnivore, so a balanced meal consists entirely of meat. Wolves eat elk, deer, and small mammals like rabbits and…fur, bones and all.

A wolf pack is like an extended family of brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins. Each pack is led by an alpha pair—two parents who protect the family and teach their pups the ways of the world.

Each spring, the alpha female gives birth to a litter of pups in a burrowed-out den. She’s the only pack member who has pups, but the whole pack helps raise them by bringing food to the den in their own stomachs and regurgitating it for the pups (Regurgitating is the same as throwing up). ¡Muy delicioso!

The Mexican gray wolf’s official scientific name is Canis lupus baileyi. But now that you know so much about it, feel free to call the Mexican gray wolf "lobo."