African Wild Dog

The African wild dog is also termed Cape hunting dog, African hunting dog, or hyena dog. The scientific name of the African hunting dog is Lycaon pictus.  The Africa hunting dogs belong to the family, Canidae. They are widely found in parts of Africa south and east of the Sahara, particularly in grasslands. The Africa hunting dogs preys on antelopes and some larger game but has been hunted in settled regions for the damage it sometimes does to domestic livestock. 

This article will discuss the entire life cycle, physical appearance, habitation, dieting, etc., of the African hunting dog.

Characteristics

The characteristics of other members in the group are different from the wild African carnivore.  The wild African carnivore will have only four toes on each foot. Their coat is short, sparse, and irregularly blotched with yellow, black, and white. The African wild dogs can grow up to the average length of about 76 cms to 102 cms, which is excluding their tail. Further, their tails length ranges from 31 to 41 cms.  They can grow 60 cm tall at the shoulder. The weight of wild dogs are about 16 to 23 kg

Generally, the African wild dog is long-limbed have a broad flat head, a short muzzle, and large erect ears. They prefer hunting in groups. And each wild dogs hunting group have 15 to 60 or more. The African wild dog species can give birth to six young ones at the end of the single gestation period, which can last for about 60 - 80 days. Now, the IUCN kept the wild dog animal in the Red List of Threatened Species.

(Image will be uploaded soon)

The above image shows an African Wild dog standing in the land 

Characteristics of African Wild Dog

Physical Appearance Of African Wild Dog

The African wild dogs are the bulkiest African canid animals. The canid animals means dog-like carnivorans species. The height of the species can measure about 60 cm to 75 cm. And their body and head length can measures about 71 to 112 cm. The average weight of well developed wild dogs can range from 18 to 36 kg.  The body mass of the African hunting dogs will vary depends on their biological structure. 

These species will show sexual diaphragm in their weight. The female dogs are generally 3 to 7 percent smaller than male dogs. The average weight of male African wild dogs are about 32.7 kg and the weight of female African wild dogs are about 24.5 kg. This species looks like a grey wolf species complex. While comparing to the other members under the genus Canis, the  African wild dogs look lean and tall with outsized ears and lacking dewclaws.

The middle two toe pads of the African dog are fused. And their dentition is also widely varied from other canids by the degeneration of the last lower molar, the narrowness of the canines and proportionately large premolars. Their premolar teeth are the largest, which compared to other carnivore species except for hyenas. The skull of the African dogs is smaller than the other canids. 

The fur of the African wild dog is also different from other canids, which consist of stiff bristle hairs with no underfur. These dogs will lose their fur gradually while getting old. The oldest Africa hunting dogs became almost naked. Usually, the African wild dog species shows extreme colour variations and may help in visual identification, So, the African wild dogs can recognise each other at distances of 50–100 m. Even their coat colour varies depends on geographical location. The species in northeastern Africa will have predominantly black with small white and yellow patches. While the species in southern Africa are more brightly coloured, with a mix of sports of brown, black and white coats. 

The coat pattern of many species will project on their trunk and legs. Some species will show 

little variation in facial marks, with the muzzle being black, which gets gradually shade into brown on the cheeks and forehead. A black line from the African wild dog forehead will be turning to blackish-brown on the back of their ears. The wild dogs contain some specimen brown teardrop-shaped marks below their eyes. The back of the neck and head of wild dog animals are either brown or yellow. These dogs occasionally have white patches behind the forelegs and some species may have completely white forelegs, chests and throats.  The tails of African wild dogs are usually white at the tip, black in the middle and brown at the base. 

But, some species do not have a white tip. They entirely have black fur below the white tip. Generally, the coat patterns of African wild dog animals are asymmetrical, the left side of the body often have different marks from the right side of the body.

Diet Of Wild Dogs

For wild dogs hunting, most of the time they prefer Thomson's gazelle, greater kudu,  bushbuck, impala, and blue wildebeest.  Mostly East Africa’s wild dogs hunting the Thomson's gazelle. While, Central and Southern Africa’s wild dogs hunting the impala, reedbuck, kob, lechwe and springbok. Most of the time, they won’t limit their diet with these animals, they can also hunt warthog, duiker, oribi, Grant's gazelle, waterbuck, ostrich, calves of African buffalos and some small preys like dik-dik, spring hares, hares, insects and cane rats. 

The size of the African wild dog’s staple preys average ranges are between 15 kg to 200 kg.

According to the study, the pack of African wild dogs with 17 to 43 dogs in East Africa will consume 1.7kg of meat each day. 

Reproduction and Life Cycle Of African Hunting Dog

Generally, the African wild dog has strong social bonds, which are stronger than the sympatric lions and spotted hyenas. Because, the lion and hyenas are following solitary living, so hunting is rare in this species. But the  African wild dogs live in permanent packs consist of two to 27 adults and some nursling pups. 

The male and female African wild dogs will have separate dominance hierarchies, which are usually led by the oldest female. Male packs may be led by the oldest male, but these can be replaced by younger species. So, some male packs may contain elderly former male pack leaders. The dominant pair will enter into mating during the breeding period. Generally, the male African wild dogs remain in the natal pack, while female dogs will disperse. The dispersing female dogs will join with other packs and evict some of the resident females related to the other pack members. Through this method, they will prevent inbreeding and allow the evicted individuals to find new packs of the same breed. The male dogs rarely disperse their packs. 

The African wild dogs spread in East Africa do not have a fixed breeding season. Most of the time, the breeding period of South African wild dog animals are falls between April to June. During the sexual period, the female dog is closely accompanied by a single male dog. Generally, the copulatory tie characteristics during mating are absent in most of the canids or it may last for less than one minute in African wild dogs. But this is possible in many other species. The gestation period of African dogs last for about 69 to 73 days and the interval between each pregnancy is about 12 to14 months.  

The  African wild dog can reproduce more pups than other species in canid, which is around six to sixteen pups after each gestation period. This means every female wild dog are enough to create a new pack at the end of every year. As, the amount of food necessary to feed more than two litters would be impossible for the mother dogs they breeding is strictly limited to the dominant female, which may kill the pups of subordinates. After giving birth, the mother female dog stays close to the pups in their den and the rest of the pack members will go for a hunt and share among them. Generally, the mother dogs will drive the pups with pack members till attaining the age of three to four weeks and feed the pups with solid foods. Then the young pups leave the den around the age of three weeks and are sustained outside. By the age of the seventh week, the pups start appearing as adult animals with noticeable length in the legs, muzzle, and ears. At the age of 10 weeks, the pups will leave the den to fight with the adults for a hunt. Meanwhile, the adult dogs allow the youngest pack members to get feed from their hunted prey. 

Enemies and Competitors of African Wild Dogs

Lions are the major source of the mortality of both adults and pups of African wild dogs. The population density of African wild dogs is low in areas where lions are more abundant. But, the Lion mostly prefer large predators for their prey, so the African wild dogs are killed and left uneaten by the lions. Spotted hyenas are the other predator for African wild dogs. 

African Wild Dogs - IUCN Status

Today, the African Wild Dogs are kept on the list of Endangered species by the IUCN. As the African Wild Dog population numbers have been rapidly declining in recent years. According to the study, there are less than 5,000 African wild dog species left roaming in the sub-Saharan African region. Even, today the count of African hunting dogs declining. Hunting, habitat loss and the fact that they are particularly defenceless to the spread of disease to livestock, are the main causes for the continent’s African Wild Dog loss.

Once, the African wild dogs are spread over in the sub-Saharan Africa region, but they are absent in the driest desert regions and lowland forests. Now, the species are largely extinct in North and West Africa and the numbers are also greatly reduced in Central Africa and northeast Africa. Now, the majority of the population occurs in Southern Africa and southern East African countries, which includes Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe. But, still, the exact count of the species in these areas are difficult to track as they many lost their habitats.