Coyote vs wolf: what’s the difference between these two beautiful and charismatic canids that thrive in North America?

Who is America’s top dog? We take a look at the differences between wolves and coyotes

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Published: Saturday, 02 November 2024 at 18:58 PM

North America is home to two striking canids, which look remarkably similar – the iconic grey wolf and the smaller – but equally mesmerising – coyote.

Ecologically, the coyote is a mesopredator’, in the middle of a trio of American canids, between the smaller red fox and the larger grey wolf at the top.

If either of these ecological controls moves, the coyote can expand its hunting repertoire. Over evolutionary time, such mesopredators become versatile, and their opportunistic habits have earned them a reputation of being tricksters in fairy tales and legends.

Here we take a look at the differences between the grey wolf and the coyote

What’s the difference between coyotes and grey wolves?

Perhaps it is no surprise the wolf is the bigger of the two, standing 90cm at shoulder and between 125cm-190cm long and weigh up to 70kg: female: up to 50kg. Whereas coyotes stand up to 61cm at shoulder and are between 100-134cm long and weigh significantly less at between 9-23kg

Do wolves and coyotes share the same diet?

The wolf feasts on mostly large mammals, including moose, caribou, bison, elk (red deer) and white-tailed and mule deer; sometimes takes livestock, small animals and carrion. While the coyote enjoys mostly small mammals such as rodents and hares, but also a wide range of other animals, fruit, carrion and refuse. In some areas (mainly in north), they do hunt deer and other large mammals in packs.

Could they work together? Perhaps the most stunning instance of opportunism and inter-species teamwork in coyotes was witnessed in Yellowstone National Park, where in 1999 biologists watched in disbelief as an adventurous coyote tried to co-operate with a wolf to bring down a young bison.

The coyote sprinted alongside the bison, repeatedly biting its front legs and preventing it from changing direction, while the wolf attacked the animal’s hindquarters. Neither canid had a chance of felling the beast alone, but together they succeeded.

The coyote no doubt expected to take its fair share of the meat, but the wolf chased it away. It seems old habits die hard.

Do they both live in packs?

But it’s not just size and diet where the differ. Wolves lives in packs that are mostly family groups led by a dominant breeding pair. Most packs consist of 5-12 individuals, though larger groups up to 40 strong are known.

The coyote social unit is a mated pair that lives alone or with relatives in a pack, usually small; packs of 15-20 form in cities and where large mammals are key prey.

Can wolves and coyotes cross breed?

In 2010, biologists in Michigan came upon a fresh set of wolf-sized tracks. They set traps, capturing three juvenile siblings – two females and a male. Though these animals resembled wolves, DNA testing revealed them to be coyotes with evidence of past hybridisation.

A wolf (their great-grandmother) had mated with a male coyote; a resulting female hybrid (their grandmother) then mated with their coyote grandfather.

This was an echo of widespread hybridisation between wolves and coyotes during the latter species’ colonisation of eastern North America, following the extermination of wolves in the mid-1900s. In the north, where advancing coyote populations met the retreating wolves, the colonisation rate was five times faster than in the south, where wolves had been eliminated well before the first coyote’s arrival.

Northern coyotes were becoming larger and darker, with stronger jaws and the ability to hunt deer, and were moving into dense forests. These features – all unusual for coyotes – were the result of hybridisation with the retreating wolves. Females of the increasingly rare wolves, unable to find mates of their own species, bred with male coyotes; the resulting hybrids mated with the coyotes.

And the result? Coyotes with wolf genes, better adapted for hunting large prey in the northern forests.

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