Wolverines: Masters of the Arctic with Unmatched Survival Skills

Wolverines look like small bears. They have large claws and sharp teeth, but they are much smaller than bears, typically weighing no more than 40 pounds. They prefer colder, snowy regions. Wolverines are found in North America, Northern Europe, and Russia. Continue reading to learn 11 of the most incredible wolverine animal facts!

1. Wolverines can smell 20 feet down in the snow to locate food.

Wolverines have incredible olfactory senses. These amazing mammals can detect the scent of prey buried in up to 20 feet of snow! This allows wolverines to maintain a healthy diet in areas tat are prone to heavy snowfall and the avalanches that accompany them.

2. Skip the refrigerator: Wolverines use the snow as a freezer to keep large kills cold.

If a wolverine takes down a large kill or finds one that has been abandoned, it will enjoy a large meal. If there are leftovers, they get buried in the snow to keep for later. Burying the extras preserves them, similar to how a freezer keeps food frozen.

3. Forget fast food, wolverines like frozen food.

The wolverine’s sharp teeth and powerful jaws crushe frozen carcasses, bones and all! In winter, wolverines depend on eating the frozen carcasses of deer, reindeer, and elk. They don’t just nibble the meat off the bones, they devour it.

4. Have built-in snowshoes, their feet spread to twice their size.

A wolverine’s paws spread to twice their size when they land on the ground. When the wolverine runs across the snow, its paws serve as snowshoes, distributing its weight and keeping it from sinking in the snow. A Wolverine paw print is about the size of a human hand. That may not seem impressive, but compared to the paws of a similarly sized dog, that’s pretty big!

5. Wolverine babies are born with white hair.

The wolverine has two to three babies at a time and the babies are born with white fur. Since they typically give birth in early spring and live in arctic regions, the white fur serves as camouflage. Wolverine babies grow up fast, reaching adult size in less than a year, they are ready to find a mate of their own by the time they are two.

6. Could wolverines be trained as search and rescue animals in the snow?

In Alaska, Mike Miller of the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center, has started a program that trains wolverines to locate and dig up avalanche victims. It seems like a good fit since wolverines can locate animals buried beneath up to 20 feet of snow. Miller is working with Steve Kroschel, who runs the Kroschel Wildlife Center and has raised wolverines for years. In an avalanche simulation, one of Korschel’s trained wolverines successfully found and dug out a human volunteer victim. The goal is to train the wolverines to locate avalanche victims and then use mechanical means to dig them out.

7. Is the Marvel Superhero Wolverine similar to real wolverines?

No set of wolverine facts would be complete without a comparison to the superhero Wolverine to his animal namesake. They share a lot of common characteristics,actually. Both Wolverine and wolverines:

• Both are immune to most poisons, like snakes and scorpions.
• Both have an incredible sense of smell and can use this to be keen trackers.
• Both have long, hard, incredibly strong claws.

Unlike Wolverine, who has unlimited healing powers, real wolverines are not invincable. Based on the reputation of wolverines to be tough, it makes sense that a superhero would be fashioned after one!

8. Wolverine Fur is Frost-resistent

The fur coat of the wolverine is very dense and water repellent. Wolverines that live in the colder regions benefit from this quality because their fur does not freeze, keeping them warm and dry. Due to these properties, people hunt wolverines for their fur to trim parkas and coats.

9. Wolverines have large territories.

Wolverines have territories of between 40-400 square miles. That is a lot of area to cover. Male wolverines have a much larger range than females and try to avoid other male wolverines as much as possible. The size of the range depends on the availability of resources as well as the season.

10. Wolverines have the nickname Skunk Bear

Because they excrete odiferous secreations form anal glands, and they resemble bears, some folks refer to wolverines as skunks bears While skunks are known to spray when they are threatened, wolverines use their smelly scent to mark their territory. When wolverines feel threatened, they are more prone to act aggressively, bearing their teeth and claws

11. A Wolverine was Caught on a Ring Camera in Utah.

In July, 2021, a wolverine was caught on a ring camera outside a home in Layton, Utah. Wolverines are extremely rare in Utah with only six confirmed sightings since 1979. It is also exceedingly rare for wolverines to stray far from its forested habitat to wander into a populated area.