Beastfile · Mammals
Wolverine
Gulo gulo
Also known as Glutton, Skunk Bear
Thirty pounds of animal that drives bears off kills and crushes frozen bone.
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 specialised 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 kilometres 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
ArcticNotable 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 kilometres
- •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.
