Beastfile · Mammals

Wolverine

Gulo gulo

Also known as Glutton, Skunk Bear

Thirty pounds of animal that drives bears off kills and crushes frozen bone.

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Overview

The wolverine is the largest land-dwelling member of the weasel family and weighs about as much as a mid-sized dog, which makes its reputation for driving wolves and bears off carcasses look absurd until you see the skull. It has a specialized upper molar rotated sideways, letting it shear through meat and bone frozen solid, which is the difference between finding a winter carcass and being able to eat one. Individuals range enormously, hundreds of square kilometers each, and females need deep spring snowpack to den, which ties the species directly to a warming climate in a way that is hard to design around.

Origin

Boreal forest, tundra and mountains across northern North America, Scandinavia, Russia and parts of central Asia.

Habitat

Arctic

Notable Traits

•A sideways-rotated molar for shearing frozen meat and bone
•Drives larger predators off carcasses despite its size
•Individual ranges covering hundreds of square kilometers
•Females need deep spring snow to den
•Broad feet that work like snowshoes

Conservation

Least Concern globally but thin and patchy nearly everywhere, and warming is the structural problem: less reliable spring snowpack removes the denning conditions the species depends on.