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The gray wolf or grey wolf (''Canis lupus' … The gray wolf or grey wolf (''Canis lupus''), often known simply as the wolf, is the largest wild member of the Canidae family and ancestors of the domestic dog. Though once abundant over much of Eurasia, North Africa and North America, the gray wolf inhabits a reduced portion of its former range due to widespread destruction of its territory, human encroachment, and the resulting human-wolf encounters that sparked broad extirpation. Even so, the gray wolf is regarded as being of least concern for extinction by the IUCN, when the entire gray wolf population is considered as a whole. Today, wolves are protected in some areas, hunted for sport in others, or may be subject to population control or extermination as threats to livestock and pets.
In areas where human cultures and wolves both occur, wolves frequently feature in the folklore and mythology of those cultures, both positively and negatively. Also, studies on the genetic distance for mitochondrial DNA on dogs and Eurasian wolves confirmed that wolves are the exclusive ancestral species to dogs.(Source:Wikipedia)cestral species to dogs.(Source:Wikipedia) +
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