Set at 00:40 on April 23, 2017
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The exact order of these physiological mutations is a continuing source of debate among scientists, but there is a general consensus thanks to the aforementioned discovery and examination of corpses in different stages of transformation. According to these supporting pieces of evidence, the long and painful transformation from human to werewolf takes up to six weeks to complete. The details of this process are as follows.
Sense Organs
Like vampires, werewolves are nocturnal organisms. As such, the earliest known changes augment their ability to see, hear and smell in low-light conditions.
Sight: Besides appearing irritated and bloodshot, the first thing to happen to the eyes is the formation of tapetum lucidum tissue behind the retina, causing eyeshine and improved night vision. Afterwards, as the inflamed sclera darkens to a more brownish or black tone, loss of pigment in the iris brightens its hue to either a pale icy blue or an intense yellow/amber coloration. Finally, the iris and cornea will slowly expand to take up more of the eyeball's surface, making the pupils appear smaller.
Smell/Hearing: For an early werewolf, hearing range quickly triples to that of a vampire, while smell becomes as keen as a zombie's. As these senses further sharpen, cartilage production causes the nose and ears to swell and enlarge, with the former becoming wider and flatter and the latter more pointed and raised. Eventually olfaction becomes 100 times keener than that of a human, while hearing ends up quadrupled.
General Appearance & Glandular Changes
Hair/Skin:
The first thing the victim will experience is an increase in body and facial hair, much like those who suffer from hypertrichosis. As it becomes coarser and thicker over the following days, the hands, feet and face become bruised and swollen as if they had been severely beaten. Soon this swelling and bruising spreads across the rest of the body as the victim experiences new bone growth. Like bears and other large mammals, an increase in melanin turns the skin either a very light or very dark grey, depending on the victim's ethnicity. However, the eyelids, nose, lips, soles and palms always become dark and thick, while the breasts and genitals remain somewhat lighter in color. The hair on the scalp is gradually shed as a sort of frizzy mane grows from the head, neck, back and chest. Unlike wolves, werewolves do not have whiskers
Sweat Glands
As the victim grows more body hair, they lose most of their ability to sweat everywhere except their palms and soles. Like wolves and other mammals, werewolves cool off mainly by breathing and panting, as fluid evaporation cools the blood vessels of the lungs and tongue. Sweating also occurs around the nose, though moisture is usually the result of fluid from the nasal mucosa. Although these areas are usually dry, additional excess heat is released through the ears, face, shoulders and inner thighs thanks to the sparser hair and thinner skin. Apocrine glands also release sweat into the hair follicles, but these are mostly just used to deliver pheromones.
Anal Glands/Tail:
Like many mammals, including dogs, cats and even humans, werewolves bear a small gland on either side of their anus between the external and internal sphincter muscles. These glands secrete a foul-smelling liquid that is used to identify other werewolves and mark territory. Elongation of the coccyx into a fully functional tail seems to aid in this practice, and is around a foot long with sparser and shorter fur than that of a wolf.
Nails/Limbs:
As the hands and feet swell and bruise, the nails on the serum-glazed fingers and toes come loose and soon fall out as the distal phalanx bones grow into hooked claws, which slowly erupt from the former nail beds as hard keratin forms around the new quicks. Starting off short and small, these claws can grow to over six inches long, with tangible girth and thickness. Eventually a werewolf's hands become more like bear paws, limiting the use of their thumbs while making it easier to dig and move on all fours. Elongation and thickening of the forearms, feet and spinal column occur soon after for this purpose.
Doubling in size, this is what ultimately
becomes of the hands.
However, bipedal movement remains just as feasible, thanks to the plantigrade feet and enlargement of the pelvic and shoulder girdle
Teeth/Jaws:
As with fingernails and toenails, a werewolf's human teeth will come loose and fall out over time as larger and sharper replacements grow in their place, all while the skull and jawbones become larger and more elongated. While humans have a total of about 32 teeth (4 canines, 8 incisors, 8 premolars and 12 molars), werewolves can have up to 42 (4 canines, 12 incisors, 16 premolars and 10 molars) like wolves and bears.
Muscular & Skeletal System
Many of the changes to a werewolf's appearance and abilities are a direct result of adaptations to its bones and musculature.
Vocal Folds
The growls, barks and howls of a werewolf sound almost identical to that of a normal wolf, only louder and deeper due to their larger body size. They're also more judicious in their use of sounds than wolves, though it's still their main form of communication, along with head and arm gestures.
Growth Plates
As a person grows, cartilage-bound fractures in the skeleton allow enlargement and lengthening of the bones. But once adulthood is reached, these fractures ossify into solid bone, preventing any further growth. So how are werewolves able to bypass this natural restriction? Three cell types are involved in the reversal of this ossification: osteoclasts, which break down bone tissue by dissolving its mineralized matrix (a process known as bone resorption); chondrocytes, which form new cartilage to replace the missing bone; and fibroblasts, which strengthen the cartilage by reinforcing it with additional collagen. Once this process is complete, cartilage can once again stack inside the open growth plates and spread across the outside of the skeleton to form new bone tissue via osteoblasts, which replace old cartilage as it degenerates. This continues until a few years after transformation, when cartilage production stops and the plates once again ossify into solid bone
Skeletal System
Skeletally, werewolves have more in common with large bears than they do with wolves, with the following differences from the former: the eye sockets and cranium are more ape-like with a similar attachment point to the spine, the upper torso is somewhat shorter with wider shoulders and intact clavicles, the pelvis is larger and wider with a longer tail, the hind legs and feet are more elongated, and the five digits on each paw and foot are arranged in a wolf-like arc. The average height for a fully-grown werewolf ranges from 7 to 9 feet tall when standing on their hind legs, and they can weigh close to 1000 pounds. Both height and weight depend on pre-transformation factors (as do fur and eye color), along with nutritional intake during and after the transformation.
Muscles/Connective Tissue:
Like vampires, an early-stage werewolf will quickly become several times stronger as much of its musculature is converted into fast-twitch tissue that's rich in myoglobin and mitochondria. Over the next several weeks, however, extreme muscle growth causes it to become drastically enlarged, making fully-grown werewolves approximately 15-20 times stronger than before transformation, with a top running speed of 50-60 mph, and bone-crushing jaws that can exert up to 2500 psi. As with vampires, the muscles and skeleton become denser and more durable with age, which is quite beneficial given the large body mass and cat-like leaping ability of at least 10 feet. Muscularly, werewolves have more in common with primates than they do with wolves.
Medical Applications
It's believed that the deossification process in lycanthropic growth plates inspired Italian surgeon Alessandro Codivilla to try this himself, resulting in a surgical practice during the early 1900s known as distraction osteogenesis. This process is used to reconstruct skeletal deformities and lengthen the long bones of the body by cutting the bone in two and allowing new bone tissue to form in the gap, which is gradually moved apart until the desired length is reached. Not only does it lengthen bone tissue, distraction osteogenesis also has the benefit of simultaneously increasing the volume of surrounding soft tissues. This surgical practice is perhaps best known for reversing the effects of dwarfism, and it's hoped that in the future a more natural process can be used to turn ossified growth plates back into cartilage. But alas, only werewolves are capable of this for now.
Cardiovascular System
Unlike vampires and zombies, a werewolf's circulatory system and body temperature remain largely unchanged from when they were human—aside from a drastic increase in organ size and blood volume to supply its larger body mass. And although it is comparatively rapid throughout the transformation process, fully-grown werewolves experience a decreased resting heart rate of around 40-50 bpm (similar to that of a large bear). As such, the physiological reliance on this organ makes werewolves a lot more vulnerable to chest injuries—especially since their ability to clot blood, heal injuries and fight infection isn't that much better than humans and other mammals. However, like vampires and zombies, there has never been a recorded case of a werewolf having cancer.
Cross-Species Infection
As stated previously, the lupine parvovirus cannot infect organisms other than canines and primates, unlike the highly-
zoonotic vampire and zombie viruses.
The carcass of a wolf had succumbed to LPV
In addition, LPV infection leaves most bodily structures and functions unchanged, although it still causes extreme aggression and eventual death. It should also be noted that not even primates such as monkeys and apes can become werewolves, since they'll always die within a week, before such a transformation could even start.
Because their cellular makeup is so different from humans, the lycanthropy virus seems to have no effect whatsoever on vampires or zombies. Fully-transformed werewolves infected with vampirism or zombism would most likely become rabid and die like other non-human mammals, although this scenario has never been tested or observed; and the data on early-stage werewolves is insufficient.
That's not to say that a vampirolycanthrope isn't possible—if the fast-acting vampirism virus was injected into a human roughly 24-48 hours after being infected with the slow-acting lycanthropy virus, so that not every cell is transformed by one or the other. And because the resulting tissues will be mismatched, the host would also have to be administered cortisone (or a similar drug) to suppress its immune system.
A Soviet experiment during the 1950s used just this method on an unknown number of criminals and political prisoners through cruel and vigorous trial and error. Of course, most of them either died or became vampires—except for one man, a 30-year-old thespian who transformed over the next few weeks into a creature that looked somewhat more humanoid than a typical werewolf, but with all the undead features of a vampire. The Soviets dubbed this hybrid the "Strigoi," after the shapeshifting vampires of Romanian mythology. What happened to this being is unknown, as most of the records on it were either withheld or destroyed.
Werewolf Sociology
Unlike vampires and zombies, werewolves are largely solitary creatures. During the transformative process, they will tirelessly relocate to a remote region of wilderness and set about creating a well-hidden shelter. However, they will occasionally commune with other werewolves and are even capable of sexual procreation. Most of what we know about them has been gleaned from eyewitness accounts, post-mortem examination and the excavation of burrows. As a result, the data on werewolves is small—too small to reach statistical significance.
The Recently Turned
Over the first few weeks of a werewolf's life, it will move far away from human population centers, traveling under the cover of night to avoid detection. They will bound down alleys, lope over rooftops and even hang on to the undersides of trucks. Early-stage werewolves can be hundreds of miles from their hometowns in a matter of days. They are very assured in their actions and do not exhibit the stress and discomfort often seen in newly-transformed vampires.
Dwellings & Dietary Habits
Newly-transformed werewolves will live in temporary shelters until they find a place suitable for a permanent abode
Far from populated areas, they prefer heavily-wooded hillsides facing towards the world's equator. Rocky outcroppings with small caves are the most ideal for them. They will even drive bears from dens that they covet.
Werewolf dens are snug—typically 10 to 12 feet long and a few feet high. They keep a clean, simple home, with bedding from plant materials, feathers and down. Although their coat thickens in response to cold weather, they can and will skin animals for blankets.
Interestingly, werewolves often hold on to items that meant something to them during their human existence: pictures, jewelry, souvenirs, clothing, books, etc. But for the most part, their living standards are closer to those of their wolf cousins than of humans.
Werewolves take great efforts to camouflage their presence in the wild, as they will cover the opening of their dens with boulders and brush and use their tremendous digging ability to carve out exit tunnels. Outside the den they urinate on bushes and trees to mark their territory and will bury their excrement. They've even been known to cover their tracks.
Like most humans, werewolves are quite attentive to their hygiene: they enjoy frequent baths in lakes and rivers, and will even rake their claws through their fur like a comb. They also chew certain plants to create crude poultices for wounds they receive taking down large prey.
Because of their remarkable intelligence and adaptability compared to common animals, werewolves can survive virtually anywhere, from the coldest polar regions to the hottest tropical rainforests. A single werewolf's home range is typically several hundred square miles. Being omnivorous, they spend much of their time hunting and foraging, eating anything and everything from berries and plants to fish, rodents and even large ungulates such as elk and moose.
As with bears, werewolves can fatten up and hibernate for up to several months without eating, drinking, urinating or defecating. Unlike vampires and zombies, however, werewolves cannot survive being frozen.
Human Attacks
Like other large predators, werewolves don't appear to have a taste for humans.
The attacks that do occur are extremely rare, and evidence suggests that they are a matter of territory rather than hunger.
That is not to say that werewolves never hunt humans: the Beast of Gévaudan killed more than 80 people in 1760s France, and a series of werewolf attacks on fishing camps and small towns in Wisconsin during the 1920s resulted in 23 deaths. The latter wolfman was killed by a team of FVZA agents, and the subsequent autopsy revealed a viral infection in its brain, suggesting that it may have been suffering from derangement. Werewolf attacks on humans are also associated with droughts and other situations that might put the beasts under stress. However, this is not a common phenomenon, considering their adaptability.
Although werewolves are highly territorial and easily threatened, their resulting behavior is largely situational. For instance, a single hiker blundering into their range might be shadowed for a while and then left alone, while a party of armed hunters is far more likely to incite their wrath. If you wish to avoid becoming prey, do not travel in deep woods during the sunrise and sunset hours. Firearms will just agitate the wolfman and are not going to be of much help if it attacks. But rest assured: werewolf attacks are extremely rare, and should not dissuade anyone from enjoying recreational activities such as camping and hunting
Social Dynamics
Because werewolves are much rarer than zombies and vampires, it is unusual to see one—much less two—in a given expanse of wilderness. Still, it does happen. If two males end up crossing paths, they will get into a vicious and bloody duel, and the battered loser will be forced to relocate to a new range.
Females tend to behave quite differently, as they don't seem to mind sharing the same land, and will sometimes even work together in the absence of a male.
Male and female werewolves get along especially well: once contact is made, they will spend the next several days together, hunting, frolicking and mating. Once the female is pregnant, however, the male usually leaves. Still, long-term bonds aren't unheard of.
After a nine-month gestation, the female will give birth to a single pup. Though pink, hairless and only a pound or so at birth, the pup grows quickly, reaching adult size in just two years. It will accompany its mother until then, before being expelled into the wild to survive on its own. For reasons not entirely clear, a female werewolf can only give birth once in her lifetime.
At adulthood, the differences between born werewolves and turned werewolves are very subtle: the latter seem to have more stretch marks on their epidermis, and a more jagged shape to their growth plates. Still, it's far from an exact science. A more obvious way to tell is if the werewolf has tattoos, piercings, surgical scars or a missing foreskin.
Demographics, Life Expectancy & Population
Most werewolves are in the 15 to 45 age group upon transformation. Regardless of their former human age, it seems to have no bearing on their lifespan as a werewolf. However, they still do age on a molecular/genetic level, albeit to a slower degree than humans.
The remains of werewolf killed in a
mudslide in southern California; 1986
While the outer limits of their natural lifespan are currently unknown, the most documented cause of death among werewolves is infection, usually from wounds sustained from large prey items. Predation from hunters is rare, and they've never been known to get cancer.
Despite their aging and vulnerability to injury and microbes, werewolves survive much longer, on average, than vampires and zombies. It's believed that one werewolf has been living in the Black Forest of Europe for more than 200 years, based on tracks and scat analysis.
As for population, the number of werewolves in existence is probably less than 1000 worldwide, as development has encroached significantly on their habitat. Werewolf distribution is closely linked with that of their wolf cousins, and are predominantly found across North America, Europe and Asia. Canada is likely home to the largest number.
Werewolf Mythology
Werewolf myths have been around perhaps even longer than those associated with vampires and zombies. For example, Ancient Greek mythology tells of Lycaon, a man transformed into a wolf after eating human flesh. Furthermore, the word werewolf is thought to be derived from the Old English wer, meaning "man." While the specific attributes of werewolves vary across different cultures, the beast itself is generally the same: a part-man, part-wolf creature of the night who preys on humans. But just as with vampires and zombies, most of the myths surrounding werewolves do not hold up to scrutiny.
Only silver can kill a werewolf
Source:
Silver is identified with the moon and is therefore ideal to slay a creature transformed under the light of the full moon. Eventually this myth expanded to include all "unnatural" creatures of the night, such as vampires.
Fact:
To kill a werewolf, you must use bullets or cartridges with serious stopping power to pierce its thick hide, but they need not be made of silver. Just be sure to aim for the head or the heart.
Werewolves only appear/attack during a full moon
Source:
Long-running superstitions about the full moon's effects on animals and humans. A similar myth depicts werewolf transformation as being triggered by a full moon, or by negative emotions.
Fact:
Werewolves can appear and attack at any time, although they are much more active at night. Furthermore, the moon has no effect on a werewolf's transformation process, nor does its mental state.
A lycanthrope will transform into a werewolf at sunset and revert back to its human form by sunrise or death
Fact: The transformation from human to werewolf is both slow and irreversible, taking up to several weeks to complete. Although it makes for good drama, a rapid transformation into a hulking beast is impossible for one important reason: where does all the extra body mass come from? Proteins, fats, sugars, vitamins, water, all the materials required for cellular growth and energy production would have to either be stored in the body in massive amounts or consumed orally as the victim transforms. Even if the person was bloated and obese with stores of extra body mass, transforming within the span of an hour would produce so much cellular heat that it would literally cook the victim to death. Even the 8 to 14-hour transformation into a zombie causes irreversible brain and organ damage from the high heat production.
Attribute Werewolves Vampires Zombies Advantage
Brain Intelligent Highly Reflexive Barely Functional Vampires
Eyes Night Vision Dilated Night Vision Extreme Myopia Vampires
Sense of Smell Extremely Developed Above Average Exceptional Werewolves
Hearing Acute (6-10 Mile Range) Exceptional Impaired Werewolves
Jaws Bone-Crushing Powerful Vice-Like Werewolves
Nervous System Normal Normal Capable of Repair Zombies
Circulatory System Normal Resilient Virtually Indestructible Zombies
Strength Epic Exceptional Powerful Grip Werewolves
Speed/Agility Outstanding Advanced Stiff-Limbed, Slow Werewolves
As frightening and powerful as vampires and zombies are, it is the werewolf that truly occupies the top of the food chain here. A rare blend of power and savagery, the werewolf combines the most formidable traits of its undead cousins, and then some. In fact, it's said the only thing a zombie fears is a werewolf. One reason there are virtually no existing tales of werewolves in the wild is that anyone who had such an encounter did not live to tell about it.
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