WILDLIFE RESEARCH -- A recent study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management confirmed that wolverines regularly patrol a vast mountain territory.

Eight years of radio-tracking 30 individual wolverines in the Rocky Mountains has provided an abundance of new data about the world's largest member of the weasel family, including that the feisty mammals survive year-round in harsh, snowy conditions 9,000 feet above see level.

See details and photos in this report from Mongabay.com.

Although immeasurably tough, the animal is nearly extinct in the lower 48 states of the U.S.