A South American canid with a reddish coat, very long slender legs and large ears.
The lower legs are black, and a dark mane can stand upright along the neck and back. Its body is narrow and its ears stand erect.
In a Cerrado landscape in Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil, researchers collected 84 maned wolf scats in 2017–2018 from native vegetation surrounded by eucalyptus plantations. They identified 27 food items, and seeds of Solanum lycocarpum, known as wolf's fruit, appeared in all 84 samples.
The researchers compared seeds recovered from scats with seeds taken from ripe fruit in germination tests. After 37 days, 52% of scat-recovered seeds had sprouted, compared with 2% of fruit-collected seeds. The result shows that maned wolves do more than eat wolf's fruit: they can carry its seeds in a form that remains able to germinate.
IUCN Red List · Near Threatened (NT) · Global
The IUCN Red List's global assessment lists the maned wolf as Near Threatened (NT). It was assessed on 13 August 2015 and published in 2015. Brazil's separate national assessment table, published by ICMBio in 2025, lists it as Vulnerable (VU). The IUCN assessment identifies conversion to crops and pasture, road mortality, persecution, and disease from domestic animals as threats.