grizzer – Apr 16, 2007 12:00 AM

Forty degrees isn’t warm, unless you’re a wolf with a full coat of winter pelage. This is the time of the year that wolves start relying on their physical adaptations for cooler. Grizzer demonstrates two methods in this week’s photo lay low during the warmest parts of the day and pant to evaporate heat and moisture off your tongue. Wolves’ adaptations favor a warm winter coat rather than bare skin covered with sweat glands. The only active cooling sweat glands a wolf possesses are in their paws. As reported in previous logs, Grizzer has moved up in rank, and with higher status comes some rights. His video shows one of those rights, the chance to stand on the main rock. While every wolf gets to do this, one thing noticed in recent observations, is that during a howling episode, Shadow generally gets the main rock for a howling position, but in two of the recent howling episodes, this right went to Grizzer with Shadow remaining on the ground.