Hypothetically if a human were to turn into a wolf, their legs would stay the same length, if not appearing slightly shorter due to the bending of digitigrade legs, but how big would a wolf be if it had the length of a humans leg? Right now I'm trying to figure out how big a 6'4 human would be as a wolf, but I don't know anything about math. The wolf should be about the same height as their human form while standing on two legs. I'd like a formula to find out the height of any were, but explained to me as if I were twelve.
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asked Oct 24, 2020 at 3:36
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$\begingroup$ Do you have rules governing your werewolves? Because without a lot more detail about the process of becoming a werewolf (there's a lot of mass conversion! Where does the mass for the fur come from?) then the only guess we can make is based on the length of the human spine. In other words, ignoring all the other (kinda important) details, find the avg length of a wolf's spine, the avg length of a human spine, that gives you a ratio and lets you see how much to upsize the wolf to get your werewolf. $\endgroup$– JBHCommented Oct 24, 2020 at 4:17
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$\begingroup$ An upright werewolf, a wolfman (from the movies) isn't shaped at all like a wolf. And most of the stories I've read, their bones break during the conversion. $\endgroup$– NomadMakerCommented Oct 24, 2020 at 13:36
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1 Answer
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Wolves as a rule are less massive than humans (averaging about two-thirds the weight: 100± lbs to the human 150± lbs). But a large wolf — one weighing in at 180 lbs or so — likely has a leg-length roughly equivalent to a human's, measured ground to hip. Typically in humans, the leg to torso ratio is 1:1, meaning the ground-to hip measure is roughly equal to the perineum to throat measure. So to find the height of a 6'4" human who transformed into a wolf, first subtract the height of the head — that's about 1/7.5 times the person's height, in this case about 10" — then divide by two. The result is about 33", which would be the ground-to-hip/shoulder height of the resultant wolf. Obviously the wolf's head might raise 8-10 inches above that, depending on its posture.
Note that there would have to be major biological adjustments. Wolves' forelegs are likely far more muscular than humans'; wolves effectively run on the 'balls' of their feet (equivalent to the base of the first knuckle in the human hand), which means the morphology of the hand and wrist would have to change drastically; the lumbar vertebrae, the sacroiliac would have to shift and curve dramatically to accommodate the horizontal posture; and the hips and shoulders would have to reorient their angles of motion considerably. It's not a trivial change by any means. But speaking purely in terms of height, all a human needs to do is create a right-angle bend at the hips, and they would be roughly the same height as an equivalently massed wolf.
The Square-Cube Law
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answered Oct 24, 2020 at 6:23
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$\begingroup$ I like this answer, but I would like some further explanation as to how you got your math, or even a formula? It's hard to read this, but that might just be because I'm dumb. Then again that's why I'm asking this question in the first place. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 24, 2020 at 21:26
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$\begingroup$ Well, setting aside some previous knowledge of anatomy, I just did some googling: "leg torso length ratio", "average human head height", "average wolf height". With a little interpolation, what I said above works out. If you need more, google the stats for Great Danes: they have roughly the same body mass as humans (males are 130 to 180 lb) and stand 30-34 inches at the shoulder (about the same as hip-height in men). Inflate a wolf to Great Dane size, and that would be more or less what one would expect of a werewolf. Canids have a slightly larger torso to leg ratio, but... $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 24, 2020 at 22:01
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$\begingroup$ Supposedly wolves are larger than Great Danes, but I'm unsure of the accuracy of that statement. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 24, 2020 at 22:14
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$\begingroup$ compare: largest wolves, Great Dane. This Image shows a comparison of humans, gray wolves, and dire wolves. Dire wolves were possible larger than Great Danes, but have been extinct for 10,000 years. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 24, 2020 at 22:48