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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff florin volgebam.

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Speaker 1: Here you can find all sorts of high school and

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Speaker 1: college athletic programs named after wolves, and why not in

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Speaker 1: a mascot battle, North Carolina State University's Mister Wolf would

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Speaker 1: surely vanquish Sammy the slug of University of California Santa Cruz.

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Speaker 1: But furthermore, gray wolves do tend to organize themselves into

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Speaker 1: social groups known as packs, with multiple animals cooperating and

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Speaker 1: hunting together, a great metaphor for sports teamwork. But in nature,

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Speaker 1: wolf packs operate very differently than most people think. One

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Speaker 1: of the biggest misconceptions involves their power structures. ALFA wolf

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Speaker 1: is a term that gets tossed around in a lot

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Speaker 1: of popular culture. The concept as we know it today

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Speaker 1: can be traced back to a nineteen forty seven study

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Speaker 1: written by animal behaviorist Rudolph Schneckel. According to this study,

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Speaker 1: a wolf packs are led by an alpha male and

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Speaker 1: an alpha female, which rule the roost by fighting the

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Speaker 1: other wolves for dominance until they've clawed their way up

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Speaker 1: the pecking order. A Schneckel wrote, by continuously controlling and

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Speaker 1: suppressing all types of competition within the same sex. Both

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Speaker 1: alpha animals defend their social position. He also posited that

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Speaker 1: the alpha wolves outrank beta wolves, who in turn looked

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Speaker 1: down on submissive omega wolves. All very hierarchical. This belief

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Speaker 1: that every wolf pack is a dog eat dog environment

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Speaker 1: where some members are constantly vying to climb the ranks

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Speaker 1: by aggressive means has been repeated in countless wildlife documentaries

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Speaker 1: and nonfiction books over the past seventy odd years. Our

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Speaker 1: colleagues at Houstuff Works even repeated that idea when we

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Speaker 1: first published the article this episode is based on back

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. However, it is misleading. Bencke's

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven paper was describing two wolf packs in captivity.

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Speaker 1: His study specimens were unrelated animals that had been brought

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Speaker 1: together at a Swiss zoo where they shared an enclosure

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Speaker 1: measuring only about two thousand square feet or two hundred

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Speaker 1: square meters. N Schneckel didn't study any wild wolves at

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Speaker 1: the time, unlike their counterparts at this particular zoo, a

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Speaker 1: natural wolf packs mainly consist of genetic relatives. They also

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Speaker 1: take up way more space patrolling territories of one thousand

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Speaker 1: square miles or about twenty five hundred square kilometers or

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Speaker 1: even more. Because they don't live under the artificial constraints

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Speaker 1: that Schneckel observed, wild wolves usually organize themselves in a

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Speaker 1: way that's less competitive. A noted wolf researcher, David Meck,

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Speaker 1: published a book in nineteen seventy that used the alpha terminology,

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Speaker 1: and more recently updated his views based on more current

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Speaker 1: scientific understanding. In a video from two thousand and eight,

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Speaker 1: he said the term alpha isn't really accurate when describing

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Speaker 1: most of the leaders of wolf packs because it implies

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Speaker 1: that the wolves fought and competed strongly to get to

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Speaker 1: the top of the pack. In actuality, the way they

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Speaker 1: get there is by mating with the member of the

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Speaker 1: opposite sex, producing a bunch of offspring, which are the

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Speaker 1: rest of the pack, then and becoming the natural leaders

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Speaker 1: that way, just like with a pair of humans producing

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Speaker 1: a family. Don't get us wrong, the alpha wolf hierarchy

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Speaker 1: system isn't a complete myth. Again, a captive wolf packs

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Speaker 1: like Schnekels have been known to adopt this kind of

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Speaker 1: pecking order, but outside of zoos and other artificial environments,

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Speaker 1: the stereotypical alpha beta omega social structure is incredibly rare,

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Speaker 1: if it can be said to exist at all. Instead,

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Speaker 1: what we usually see is a howling nuclear family. Your

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Speaker 1: typical wild wolf pack is made up of two breeding

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Speaker 1: adults and their progeny, and new pups are born during

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Speaker 1: the spring in litters, usually consisting of four to six

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Speaker 1: babies weighing about one pound or half a kilo each. Oftentimes,

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Speaker 1: the little tykes receive care from both parents as well

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Speaker 1: as from their older siblings. Most youngsters leave their original

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Speaker 1: pack after anywhere from nine months to three years, so

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Speaker 1: it's not uncommon to find parents and tiny infants living

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Speaker 1: together with adolescent wolves born in previous years. After moving out,

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Speaker 1: young adults try to find mates and establish their own packs,

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Speaker 1: beginning the cycle. Anew unrelated wolves do sometimes join a pack,

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Speaker 1: and packs may include multiple breeding pairs, although that's a

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Speaker 1: departure from the norm. Bigger packs aren't necessarily the most successful.

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Speaker 1: Having extra mouths to feed can be a real detriment

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Speaker 1: when your prey is scarce, though of course it depends

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Speaker 1: on your prey. At Yellowstone National for example, packs of

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Speaker 1: nine or more wolves are the most likely to succeed

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Speaker 1: when they go bison hunting. Elk, by comparison, are easier

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Speaker 1: to kill, with packs containing two to six wolves regularly

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Speaker 1: taking them down. That being said, it's not all friendly cooperation.

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Speaker 1: Wolves are territorial creatures. A crossing into another group's domain

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Speaker 1: can open the door for confrontation. But how can wolves

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Speaker 1: tell where their land begins and ends? Sometimes the nose nose.

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Speaker 1: Wolves scent mark by spreading urine and feces on above

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Speaker 1: ground targets, such as a tree stump. This tells intruders

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Speaker 1: that they're approaching boundaries and provides the wolves with olfactory signposts.

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Speaker 1: Howling can also be used to signal rival packs, hopefully

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Speaker 1: keeping them at bay. Today's episode is based on the

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Speaker 1: article what is a wolfpac mentality on how stufforks dot

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Speaker 1: Com written by Kristin Conger and Mark Vncini. The Brainstuff

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Speaker 1: is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com

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Speaker 1: and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts myheart Radio,

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Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

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