Philip L. Wright Zoological Museum

Canis lupus

Most of what makes my job so interesting is that the specimens we get in the museum are rarely textbook perfect examples of their species.  More often than not they reveal evidence of previous healed traumas, unusual pathologies, or quirky characteristics that distinguish them as individuals.  This week in the museum I am trying to match up the skulls to the respective pelts/partial hides of 12 wolves donated to us from Wyoming Fish, Game, and Parks back in 2009.  The wolves need to be cataloged into the collection, but without all of the collected materials from each individual we don’t have the correct information, which is the conundrum I am in.  

Details aside, I was intrigued to notice these dental abnormalities on a few of the specimens — one had an interesting malocclusion, and the other was missing the right upper canine entirely.  We speculated that Wolf B (missing canine) may have suffered some previous trauma that removed the permanent canine and allowed the premaxillary bone to regrow in its absence.