Stunning Footage Shows Mysterious ‘Wolf-Coyote-Dog’ Stare into Trail Camera

A mysterious “wolf-coyote-dog” creature, that is yet to be identified, was filmed staring into a trail camera in incredible footage.

The enigmatic canine — which has characteristics of a coyote, wolf, and a dog — was captured by trail cameras set up by the Voyageurs Wolf Project in the woodlands of northern Minnesota.

The project, which is run through the University of Minnesota, covers wolves across the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem, which includes Voyageurs National Park.

The striking footage shows the canine leap toward the trail camera. The peculiar animal then glares at the camera and darts out of the shot.

Experts at the University of Minnesota research group have been left baffled by the footage of the strange canine caught on its camera. They have now asked for suggestions from social media users.

“To us, the animal looks ‘coyote-esque’ but has some dog-like aspects to its appearance (especially its ears), and possibly some wolf-like characteristics (e.g., robust snout, a bit bigger body than coyotes in our area…but these are attributes from some dogs as well),” the Voyageurs Wolf Project writes in a Facebook post.

The research group adds: “In many respects, the animal looks more like eastern coyotes that live in eastern North America but still the ears just look real funny to us.”

‘Ultimately, We Won’t Ever Know for Sure’

The video was filmed “last winter” but was only shared by the Voyageurs Wolf Project this month.

In a follow-up post on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter), the Voyageurs Wolf Project went into more depth about the distinctions between wolves and coyotes in northern Minnesota. Sharing a video of coyotes in the areas, the research group explained that the local wolves are much larger than coyotes.

Even though wolves in our area are fairly small relative to wolves in other areas (wolves in our area average ~62-63 lbs), they are still considerably larger than coyotes when you compare the two.

Here is a video we made a few years back showing the size difference between the… pic.twitter.com/ZoTGv4RSll

— Voyageurs Wolf Project (@VoyaWolfProject) November 6, 2024

“The coyotes in this video are typical of what coyotes look like in our area—which is why the video of that mysterious sort-of-coyote-looking-but-not-entirely-coyote-looking canine we shared yesterday caught our attention,” the Voyageurs Wolf Project writes on X.

In an interview with Forbes, project lead Thomas Gable says that one thing is for sure about the mysterious canine in the footage: it isn’t pure wolf.

However, researchers will likely never know what species the unfathomable canine actually is.

“Ultimately, we won’t ever know for sure one way or another because the animal just passed through our area in winter and we haven’t seen it on any trail camera since then so we cannot get a genetic sample or anything like that to tell one way or another,” Gable tells Forbes.

 
Image credits: All photos by Voyageurs Wolf Project.