A wildlife camera in Minnesota captured a rare sight recently: a lone wolf with a stunning coat of black fur.
The Voyageurs Wolf Project said it is currently tracking some 19 packs in the area ― but none of them have any wolves with black fur, which means this one was just passing through.
The project released the “stunning” footage on social media as well as YouTube:
The International Wolf Center estimates that less than 2% of wolves in Minnesota are black.
“We rarely see black wolves in our area so seeing this black wolf with its seemingly shaggy coat, especially around its legs and feet, was pretty neat!” the Voyageurs Wolf Project wrote in its YouTube description.
The project is an effort by the University of Minnesota to study the wolves in and around Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota.
The footage shows the wolf pacing, looking around, and then briefly pawing at the snow before pulling something out and running off with the object in its mouth.
The organization said in response to a question on Twitter that the object was likely “a rock or something.”
The Voyageurs Wolf Project has released some stunning clips in recent years, including a pack that’s nearly all black wolves passing through last year, trail camera video of a pup learning to howl, and footage taken from a collar camera that had been place on a wolf.
H/T Digg