This is the moment a lonely Arctic Wolf that has been howling at night for company was finally introduced to a male – and she showed him her teeth.

The female Arctic wolf, named Bjelle, (right in video) was the only Arctic Wolf being kept at the Herberstein Zoo located in the grounds of Schloss Herberstein in the Alpine province of Styria in southern Austria.

She was born in 2017 in Petersburg in Germany, and because wolves are pack animals, managers were keen to provide her with a partner – which finally turned up this week in the form of male wolf Herbert, (left in video)who was born in May last year at Mautern, also in Styria.

He was delivered to the zoo on 16th August, but the pair were only allowed to meet for the first time this week and as this video shows, Bjelle was clearly nervous about the arrival of the confident intruder.

After seeing her teeth, he disappeared around a tree to show he meant no harm, which is probably wise because in the wild Arctic Wolves can take down a 400-kilogramme (880-lb) Muskoxen, which is a small relative of the bison, and they have also been known to steal polar bear cubs.

So after Herbert kept his distance for a while after the initial frosty reception, and according to zoo management, the pair are now good friends and act as if they have been together for years.

The zoo is also hoping that the pair might eventually reproduce. In the wild there have been some concerns that the purity of the Arctic Wolf, which is a subspecies of the grey wolf and lives in northern Canada, is being diluted by wolf dog interbreeding.