Direwolves



A direwolf is an unusually large and intelligent species of wolf. Direwolves are held to be mythical in most of the south of Westeros, although there are rumours of them living in the Wolfswood near Winterfell. The Night's Watch who guard the Wall and the wildlings who live beyond it both claim that direwolves can be found in greater numbers in the Haunted Forest to the north of the Wall.

An adult direwolf is as large as a small horse, and can rip a man's arm from its socket. Even a juvenile direwolf is quite capable of killing a man by ripping out his throat. Physically they are not simply larger versions of wolves, but have slightly different proportions from their smaller cousins: their head is larger with a more pronounced mussle, their legs are longer, and they have proportionately more muscle mass then a similarly-sized normal wolf would.

A grey direwolf on a white field is the family symbol and crest of House Stark.

List of direwolves in the series
The children of House Stark find six direwolf cubs at the very beginning of the series and adopt them. They are as follows:


 * Grey Wind, adopted by Robb Stark.
 * Lady, adopted by Sansa Stark; Lady is killed at the order of Robert Baratheon.
 * Nymeria, adopted by Arya Stark; fearing for her life, Arya chases Nymeria away.
 * Summer, adopted by Bran Stark.
 * Shaggydog, adopted by Rickon Stark.
 * Ghost, adopted by Jon Snow.

Behind-the-scenes
In season one, the production team used adult dogs to stand in for the juvenile direwolf puppies. In interviews they have stated that this was done so that the audience would be more attached to them when they were introduced, instead of simply a special effect. However they have also stated that by season two and onwards, the direwolves will reach the point in the story when they are too big to be represented by normal dogs, and will be portrayed as a CGI effect (i.e. a horse-sized Grey Wind ripping the throat out of Lannister war-horses, utterly terrified because they've never encountered a wolf ''bigger' than they are).