Rudeln

Rudeln is the dative plural form of the German noun Rudel, which designates a pack or group of animals that live and hunt together. The base form in the nominative plural is die Rudel, while the dative plural appears as den Rudeln. The form Rudeln also occurs in bare dative constructions without an article, as in In Rudeln jagen Wölfe oft gemeinsam. The term is used primarily in zoological and ecological contexts, but it can also appear metaphorically to describe human groups acting cohesively.

In biological usage, a pack or Rudel typically represents a social unit that shares territory and coordinates activities such as hunting, defense, and pup-rearing. Wolves are the canonical example, but other social carnivores or canids may form Rudel-structured groups under suitable environmental conditions. Pack composition and size vary with species, resource availability, and seasonal factors; members often include breeding adults and their offspring, with juveniles remaining in the group for an extended period before dispersing.

Linguistically, Rudeln serves as a concrete noun for natural groups and can take different grammatical cases depending on sentence structure. It can also appear in broader metaphorical contexts to describe large, organized cohorts of people or objects acting in a coordinated way. The term thus spans scientific description and everyday language, reflecting the social organization inherent to many animal groups.

See also: Pack (Zoologie), Rudel, Sozialstruktur in Tieren.