Even its coat of short dense ash-grey fur, tinged in parts with white, russet and brown was perfectly adapted to its mountain habitat.
The tiny size of this little god would rarely exceed 104 cm (41in) in length with a thin tail measuring approximately 30 cm (12in) long.
Its legs, even in relation to its small size, were extraordinarily short for a true wolf; wolves tend to be long legged and this very unique characteristic suggested, like its thin tail, a closer relation to a wild dog rather than a wolf.
Because of this, the nineteenth-century French natural historian Temminck, in his 'Fauna Japonica' gave it the latin name Canis hodophiiax. Today, considered to be a subspecies of the Grey Wolf its scientific name is Canis |upus hodophilax.

It was the aboriginal Japanese, the Ainu, who named this wolf the 'Howling God'.
It would howl for hours, the mournful wails emanating from the bleak and remote mountain range terrified these simple people who could only imagine that the creature held great powers; it was a mystical and powerful creature to them.

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