No creature of the Far North is less beloved than the wolverine. It has none of the polar bear’s soulfulness, or the snowy owl’s spooky majesty, or even the dewy white fairy-tale mischievousness of the Arctic fox. The wolverine is best known for unpleasantness. This dog-size weasel, which grows to about 30 pounds, has daggerlike claws and jaws strong enough to tear apart a frozen moose carcass. It will eat anything, including teeth. (Its scientific name is Gulo gulo, from the Latin for “glutton.”) In some cultures it’s known as a “skunk bear,” for the odious anal secretion it uses to mark its territory. And yet, from certain angles, with its snowshoe paws and a face like a bear cub’s, it can appear cuddly. It is not. A wolverine will attack an animal ten times its size, chasing a moose or caribou for miles before bringing it down. “They’re just a vicious piece of muscle,” says Qaiyaan Harcharek, an Inupiat hunter in Utqiagvik, on Alaska’s Arctic coast. “Even the bears don’t mess with them little guys.”
Supremely adapted to the Far North, wolverines have paws that expand to nearly twice their size, functioning atop the snowpack like snowshoes. In a chase they can outlast most animals and run as far as 50 miles. (Peter Mather)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/wolverines-arctic-animal-love-hate-180974160/