wolf children
two girls, Amala and Kamala, who were reported to have been discovered in a wolves’ den in India (in 1920) and who had adopted all of the major lupine life patterns, such as eating raw meat, howling in the night, and ambulating on all fours. When captured, they were approximately 18 months and 8 years old, respectively; Amala died within a year. Kamala lived until about age 17 (dying in 1929), having learned only minimal human behavioral skills, such as walking on two feet in a half-crouch, acquiring a very rudimentary vocabulary, wearing clothes, and running simple errands. The original account was always controversial and treated with some degree of skepticism. In 2007, a French surgeon, Serge Aroles, published a study that debunked much of the veracity of the source and some of the subsequent research. See also wild boy of Aveyron.