Black wolf

[8] Cuvier noted that European black wolves differed little in size from other colour phases, but exceeded them in physical strength.

[6] Charles Hamilton Smith wrote that black wolves were generally less aggressive than ordinary kinds, and interbred with dogs more readily.

[5] In Serbia (Southeastern Europe, the Balkan Peninsula) indicated that on 17 November 2012, a black wolf was killed at Stara Mountain.

[9][10] In Poland two black wolves, likely siblings, were caught on camera set up by SAVE Wildlife Conservation Fund crossing the forest river in northern Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship.

The "Derboun" of the Arabian mountains and southern Syria was a small black wolf which apparently was considered by the Arabs to be more closely related to dogs, as they freely ate its flesh like any other game, unlike with regular wolves which had an unpleasant odour.

[5] Black wolves in Tibet are known locally as chanko nagpo, and are considered bolder and more aggressive than the pale-coloured variety.

[14] Although the black wolves of America were originally given the same binomial name as those in Europe, Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest believed that they were a different species.

Bartram also described a "black wolf-dog of the Florida Indians" which was identical to the local wolves, save for the fact that it could bark, and could be trusted around horses.

[1] At the University of California, Los Angeles, Robert K. Wayne, a canine evolutionary biologist, stated that he believed that dogs were the first to have the mutation.

Dr. Barsh ruled out camouflage, as wolves have few natural predators, and there is no evidence that a black coat colour leads to any increase in hunting success rates.

[22] Dr. Barsh observed that beta-defensin is involved in providing immunity to viral and bacterial skin infections, which might be more common in forested, warmer environments.

[30] Black wolves rarely occur in Europe and Asia, where interactions with domestic dogs have been reduced over the past thousand years due to the depletion of wild wolf populations.

[34] They are more common in North America; about half of the wolves in the reintroduced wolf population in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park are black.