A strange, but adorable, canine-like creature was spotted out in Minnesota and there are photos to prove it. Experts are left stumped as they try to figure out what the mystery animal might be.
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The animal has characteristics similar to that of a coyote and a wolf, but not entirely one or the other. A conservation organization in Minnesota called the Voyageurs Wolf Project posted about the creature on X. The post read, “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.”
The organization joked saying that the furry friend was actually called the “elusive woyote dog”, since it seems to have characteristics of all three; a dog, a coyote, and a wolf.
Voyageurs Wolf Project, located on the Canadian border, happened upon the “woyote” last winter as it moved through the Midwest. Their post also includes a video of the animal with its rounded ears and long snout.
The organization wrote, “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. Either way, we only got one observation of this animal so it was likely just moving through the area.”
The Elusive “Woyote”
A member of the organization, Thomas Gable, also spoke with Forbes about their discovery. He explained, “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.
Several users on X commented on the post, many of which created fake names. One user wrote, “It’s sad when humans can’t make an identification of a textbook Yotedoodle.” Another person referred to it as the “North American cutie patootie.”
While users had their fun the Voyageurs Wolf Project created a separate post detailing the difference between a wolf and a coyote. They explained that a wolf is typically much larger than a coyote, making it easy to differentiate the two.