October 26 - Howl at the Moon Night

Posted October 26, 2020

Howl at the Moon Night may just be a marketing-strategy “celebration” – but let’s go with the theme for this day with fun and facts!

Key Points

First, the fun: have a Halloween-adjacent party some year (and a zoom event THIS year –
pandemic!) with the theme of howling at the moon. I can picture Howl-at-the-Moon karaoke (in which you howl instead of singing words – but you stick to the tune and timing of the song!), a howling contest, and/or a cake frosted in white or yellowish white and decorated with craters and, at the bottom, black silhouettes of wolves or other canines howling!

Or you can go REALLY fancy with the cake:

Now for the facts: I bet you already know that wolves don’t actually howl TO or AT the moon. But these canines are mostly nocturnal – they do most of their hunting at night, and much of their sleeping during the day. So communication often happens at nighttime, too – and even though the moon is in someone’s sky every single daytime hour, we are much more aware of the moon at night!

So wolves mostly active at night; moon mostly noticeable at night – that explains why so many different cultures all over the world have made a connection between wolves and the moon.

Okay, so wolves don’t howl to the moon – who ARE they howling to? And why do they point their snouts upwards as if they are indeed addressing the sky and all its celestial objects?

Of course, wolves are “talking” to other wolves when they howl. But there are lots of ways wolves communicate – from growling and barking to whimpering. Howling is the method by which wolves can communicate over long distances. And pointing their snout upwards as they howl makes the sound travel a lot further!

Other species that howl for long-distance communication (and sometimes seem to howl at the moon) include coyotes, jackals, and dogs. Of
course, dogs are closely related to wolves – they pretty much ARE domesticated wolves!