Species Fact Profile: African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus)

                              African Wild Dog/African Painted Wolf/Cape Hunting Dog

                                                       Lycaon pictus (Temminck, 1820)

Range: Historically distributed across much of sub-Saharan Africa, excluding only rainforests and very dry deserts.  Today very patchy distribution, mostly remaining in southern and south-eastern Africa.  Almost completely extirpated from West Africa

Habitat:  Short-grass plains, semi-desert, bushy savannah, upland forest

Diet: Primarily mid-sized antelope, sometimes larger (buffalo, eland) or smaller (hares, lizards) prey.  Rarely scavenge

Social Grouping: Packs of up to 30 individuals

Reproduction: Breeding is seasonal in southern Africa, year-round in East Africa.  Each pack consists of a dominant breeding pair, though sometimes other females may breed.   Litters of 10-11 (sometimes up to 21 – biggest litters of any canids) pups are born after a gestation period of 71-73 days in an underground den (i.e., aardvark burrow), where they remain for the first three months.  Sexual maturity reached at 2 years, but due to sexual suppression, few breed this young. 

Lifespan: 10 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Endangered.  USFWS Endangered.

• Largest African canid.  Head to body length 84-130 meters, 31-43 centimeters of tail.  Weight 18-28 kilograms.  Lightly built with long, slim legs and large, rounded ears.  Males are slightly heavier (3-7%)  than females.
• Coloration is a patchwork of irregular black, yellow, brown, and white blotches.  Almost all individuals have a yellow-brown head with a black mask, black ears, as well as a white tip to the tail.  Other than that, coat pattern varies widely and can be used to identify individual dogs    
• Hunt in packs, running down prey until a first dog is able to seize it.   A chase can last for several kilometers, with the dogs running 55 kilometers per hour.  Then, the rest of the pack grabs a hold and brings the prey animal to the ground, where it is disemboweled.  Packs sometimes split up to pursue multiple individual prey animals when hunting.  Hunting success is relatively high; 70% success, versus less than 25% for lions
• Lone wild dogs have extremely difficult time capturing their normal prey and an almost impossible time defending kills from other carnivores
• Packs form when small, same-sex groups (usually siblings) break off from their natal groups and merge with a same-sex group from another natal group.  Sometimes, two smaller mixed-sex packs merge.
• Very vocal with a number of unique vocalizations for complex communications.  Includes a bell-like cooing call, which is for contact, and a twittering birdlike call for rallying a pack
• Home range size can be as small as 50 square kilometers for a pack that is feeding young pups in a den to over 1300 square kilometers, very large for their body size.  Packs will infrequently but aggressively defend their territories from other packs.  Enormous home ranges, low population density, and tendency to wander out of even the largest protected areas are major conservation challenges for this species         
• Mother and pups (weaning at 4 weeks, finished by 8 weeks) fed on regurgitated meat.  Wild dogs will also regurgitate for sick/injured pack members, as well as for greeting ceremonies when they see each other after separation
• Wild dogs have antagonistic relationships with lions and spotted hyenas, which may steal kills and kill adults and pups.  Leopards and crocodiles may also kill wild dogs and their pups.  Possible that their wide-ranging behavior is meant to help avoid these rivals    
• Originally considered a species of hyena.  Latin name translates to “Painted Wolf.”  They are also sometimes called African hunting dogs, Cape hunting dogs, painted dogs, or several other variants of these names.  Some biologists are trying to rebrand the species as “painted wolf” due to the negative connotation of “wild dog”
• Historically eastern and southern subspecies were proposed, other sources proposed five (Cape, East African, West African, Chad, and Somali).  Now regarded as single unit
•   Small role in African folklore and culture compared to other large carnivores.  San people believe the moon cursed the hare to be eternally pursued by wild dogs for thwarting the gift of immortality for all animals.  San also viewed the wild dog as the ultimate hunter.  The Ndebele tell the tale of a wild dog hunting zebra, impala, and other ungulates as revenge for their inadvertent role in the death of wild dog’s mate        
• Primary threat is loss of habitat; even the largest national parks are too small to sustain very large populations of wild dogs, which are then penned up alongside lions, spotted hyenas, and other rivals, which outcompete them
• Very susceptible to rabies, distemper, and other diseases, which can be spread by feral dogs.  Rabies is believed to have been responsible for the extinction of the species in the Serengeti
• Severely despised by European colonist, who thought wild dogs were cruel and savage.  Deliberately exterminated as it was believed that otherwise they would kill all of the antelope and other game species, a belief which was officially practiced through the 1970s and still subscribed to by some game managers today
• There has been some success in reintroducing captive-bred wild dogs into the wild.  Early efforts failed due to poor hunting skills and naivety towards the danger posed by lions and hyenas, but success has been achieved with mixed packs of wild and captive born animals

Zookeeper's Journal: Both in the wild and in the zoo, the African wild dog is often overshadowed by its larger or more famous rivals – lions and hyenas, leopards and cheetahs.  Historically, the species was fairly uncommon in zoos; I didn’t see my first wild dog until the late 1990s.  Since then, the species has become much more common, with packs being established at many zoos.  In some of these facilities, most notably Denver Zoo’s Predator Ridge, it is featured in rotating exhibits alongside lions and hyenas as a form of enrichment.   I was lucky enough to see the species in the wild during a trip to South Africa in 2012.  Our guide got word of the dogs on the move and we were able to intercept them as a pack was reuniting at the den site.  I was amazed at how… indifferent they seemed as we drove among them, and got some great photographs of the pack.   Ironically, at the same time that I was admiring those wild dogs in South Africa, the species was making the news in the US, and not in a positive light.  A small boy fell into the enclosure of the African wild dogs at the Pittsburgh Zoo and was killed immediately by the pack; one dog had to be destroyed so that the body could be reclaimed.  The pack was later sent to another facility over fears for their safety from hostile members of the public.  I cannot imagine that death by African wild dog would be a pleasant way to go.  I remember talking with some keepers from one facility which had just added a small pack of the canids.  They were accustomed to going in with their wolves, so thought nothing of going in with their wild dogs… at least, not until they tried it for the first time.  Upon entering the enclosure for the first time, the pack, which had been sleeping in a heap in the corner, immediately sprang to life, fanning out and assuming positions to surround the keepers (they wisely decided to go in numbers for their first try) and cut off exit.  Thankfully, the keepers read the room and got out quickly, before the dogs had the opportunity to decide whether or not they were serious.  You don’t get a 70-90% efficiency hunt rate by being slackers.