Amazing stuff! So next time you meet a wolf you can tell whether he wants to eat you or play with you! 😊
"Spending over 135 hours with multiple captive wolf packs, the researchers found five distinct facial expressions that wolves use to communicate different levels of playfulness and aggression. During playful interactions, for example, a wolf might open its mouth and relax its lips. If play-fighting goes a step too far, the wolf may pull back its lips, revealing its gums and narrowing its eyes. If things continue to intensify and look to boil over into an all-out fight, the wolf will reveal a light spot on the very top of its gums: a blazing red warning flag.
This complex gradient of wolf expressions contrasts with domestic dogs, who only have one expression for play and one for aggression."
From the highlights and abstract:
"Highlights
• Wolf facial displays differ strongly in playful and aggressive contexts.
• During aggression three different threatening faces can be present.
• Wolves display two different playful facial displays.
• Playful and aggressive facial displays always differ in the same key elements.
• Play and aggressive facial displays were consistent across three wolf groups.
Animals have evolved a wide variety of signals that punctuate social interactions, thus optimizing communication systems. In the study of communicative strategies, real and play fighting are good models, as they are associated with risks and injuries. Therefore, within these two domains, clear ‘statement’ signals should be recruited to disambiguate messages. We gathered video data (135 h) from 38 wolves from three mixed-age captive groups (Canis lupus arctos, C. l. lupus, C. l. occidentalis) and analysed all the facial expressions in aggressive and playful domains. The analyses revealed the presence of three different threatening faces (Light-, Medium- and High-TF), mainly performed during aggressive encounters, which differed in the degree of mouth opening and lip stretching. We also identified two different relaxed open mouth facial expressions (Full- and Half-ROM) exclusively performed during play and possibly signalling different levels of playful arousal. Interestingly, facial expressions did not differ between groups thus suggesting a hard-wired facial communication system at least in these two domains. The next step will be to test hypotheses on the efficacy of such facial displays in eliciting an appropriate response in the receivers, potentially translating into a fine modulation of behavioural patterns in both play and real fighting."
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