The other day I thought I would be fun to find out my wife's and I spirit animal. She ended up being a raven and I ended up being a wolf. Then I started to do some research and found that the raven and the wolf have a very symbiotic relationship.
The raven is sometimes known as "the wolf-bird." Ravens, like many
other animals, scavenge at wolf kills, but there's more to it than that.
Both wolves and ravens have the ability to form social attachments and
they seem to have evolved over many years to form these attachments with
each other, to both species' benefit.
There are a couple of theories as to why wolves and ravens end up at the
same carcasses. One is that because ravens can fly, they are better at
finding carcasses than wolves are. But they can't get to the food once
they get there, because they can't open up the carcass. So they'll make a
lot of noise, and then wolves will come and use their sharp teeth and
strong jaws to make the food accessible not just to themselves, but also
to the ravens.
Ravens have also been observed circling a sick elk or moose and calling
out, possibly alerting wolves to an easy kill. The other theory is that
ravens respond to the howls of wolves preparing to hunt (and, for that
matter, to human hunters shooting guns). They find out where the wolves
are going and following. Both theories may be correct.
Wolves and ravens also play. A raven will sneak up behind a wolf and
yank its tail and the wolf will play back. Ravens sometimes respond to
wolf howls with calls of their own, resulting in a concert of howls and
calls.
Sources: Mind of the Raven, Bernd Heinrich, The American Crow and the Common Raven, Lawrence Kilham