Meet Rare Sea Wolves Who Live Off The Ocean And Can Swim For Hours
Along the wild Pacific coast of British Columbia, there lives a population of the sea wolves. “We know from exhaustive DNA studies that these wolves are genetically distinct from their continental kin,” says McAllister. “They are behaviourally distinct, swimming from island to island and preying on sea animals. They are also morphologically distinct — they are smaller in size and physically different from their mainland counterparts,” says Ian McAllister, an award-winning photographer who has been studying these animals for almost two decades.
McAllister captured the magic of these wolves in breath-taking pictures. As he swam towards them, “the curious canines approached him so closely that he could hear them grunting into his snorkel. He took several frames, then pushed back into deeper water without daring to look up,” writes the bioGraphic.
One could almost call these sea wolves pescatarians – 90 percent of their food comes directly from the ocean, with a fourth of it coming from eating salmon. On top of having distinctive food patterns, sea wolves are also excellent swimmers, with their farthest record being swimming to an archipelago 7.5 miles from the nearest landmass.
http://www.boredpanda.com/swimming-sea-wolves-pacific-coast-canada-ian-mcallister/?llid=Q1ZQP&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=liquidsocial&utm_content=Omeq
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/sea-oceans-wolves-animals-science/
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/sea-wolves/mcgrath-text
More pics at the link. And National Geographic has more about these water loving wolves.
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Just when you think the world has few, good surprises left, these folks show up!
Water Wolves...
They have a common ancestor.
One branch returned to the sea.
Very cool! Thanks!!
When we lived in San Francisco, we loved to take the kids to Pier 39 to see the sea lions.
"A few California sea lions began hanging out on Pier 39's K-Dock shortly after the Loma Prieta earthquake hit San Francisco in October, 1989.
By January 1990, the boisterous barking pinnipeds started to arrive in droves and completely took over K-Dock, much to the exasperation of Pier 39's Marina tenants."
("Sea Lions & The Sea Lion Story - PIER 39"
and wondered if anyone was studying them - I used to keep up on that sort of research.
Very cool, thanks for posting!
