40 Fun Facts About African Wild Dogs

African wild dog packs appear to vote on whether to set off on a hunt by doing what?

Sneezing works like a show of hands: the more dogs that join in at a pre-hunt rally, the more likely the pack is to leave. When a top-ranking dog starts, about three sneezes are enough.

The African wild dog's scientific name, Lycaon pictus, is usually translated as which two-word phrase?

Painted wolf suits the blotched, multicoloured fur. One conservation group promotes it as the everyday name too, arguing that 'wild dog' gives the animal a bad image.

At a kill, which members of an African wild dog pack are allowed to eat first, ahead of every adult?

The youngest pups eat even before the pack's leaders, a privilege that ends once they become yearlings. Lower-ranking adults stand guard and help feed them.

Which feature found on most dogs' front legs is missing in the African wild dog?

Dewclaws are the small fifth toes set high on most dogs' front legs. Losing them is thought to have lengthened the African wild dog's stride and raised its speed.

Coenraad Temminck, who first described the African wild dog, mistook it for which kind of animal?

A hyena is what Temminck took his specimen for, naming it Hyaena picta. Seven years later Joshua Brookes recognised the animal as a member of the dog family.

Who narrated the BBC series Dynasties, whose African wild dog episode followed the ageing matriarch Tait?

David Attenborough told how Tait's pack was driven from its territory by a rival pack led by her own daughter, Blacktip. Blacktip's pack then pursued them for eight months.

How do African wild dogs returning from a hunt deliver meat to pack members left behind at the den?

They regurgitate it, and not only for the young: unlike most social predators, African wild dogs also bring up meat for adults, so babysitters and injured dogs still get fed.

Researchers tell African wild dogs apart by which feature, as unique to each animal as a fingerprint?

Coat pattern differs on every dog, and even the two sides of one animal often differ. The dogs seem to use it too, recognising one another from 50 to 100 metres away.

A pack of African wild dogs was once recorded on the summit of which African mountain, far above the savanna?

Kilimanjaro is an odd place for a hunter of open plains, which normally avoids even forest because trees block its view of prey.

Which big cat is a major killer of African wild dogs, attacking adults and young but rarely eating them?

Lion prides kill the dogs as rivals rather than as food, and African wild dog numbers tend to stay low wherever the cats are plentiful.

South Africa's largest population of African wild dogs lives in which national park?

Kruger has long held the largest share of the country's few hundred wild dogs, in packs that typically number just four or five adults.

Which conservation category has the IUCN Red List given the African wild dog for more than three decades?

Endangered has been its status since 1990, largely because the survivors are split into dozens of small populations, the biggest probably holding fewer than 250 dogs.

African wild dogs are easy to recognise by their very large ears, which are which shape?

Rounded ears, often likened to a bat's, sit on a skull that is shorter and broader than those of other members of the dog family.

At which times of day do African wild dogs do most of their hunting, apart from the odd moonlit night?

Dawn and dusk are cooler than midday yet still light enough for a hunter that finds its prey by sight rather than smell.

African wild dogs catch antelope mainly through which hunting method?

A long stamina chase wears the prey down, typically over about two kilometres, with the dogs biting at the legs and belly of larger animals until they stop running.

Which small antelope of the East African plains is the African wild dog's most common prey there?

Thomson's gazelle tops the menu in East Africa, and a pack can finish one in about 15 minutes. Farther south the dogs more often take impala.

Genome sequencing found signs of ancient interbreeding between the African wild dog and which Asian canid?

Dhole and African wild dog now live continents apart, but during the Pleistocene the dhole ranged as far west as Europe, which may have brought the two together.

African wild dogs are carved on stone cosmetic palettes from the earliest days of which ancient civilisation?

Egypt's predynastic hunters seem to have identified with the animal: the Hunters Palette shows men wearing African wild dog tails on their belts.

In a story told by the San people, the moon cursed which animal to be hunted forever by African wild dogs?

The hare had rebuffed the moon's promise that all living things would be reborn after death, so the tale ties African wild dogs to the origin of death itself.

In a typical African wild dog pack, which members normally produce all of the young, helped by everyone else?

One dominant pair usually does all the breeding, because an average pack could never catch enough food to raise more than two litters.

Which African wild dogs usually leave their home pack once grown, the reverse of most social carnivores?

Young females set off to join other packs while most of their brothers stay put, a habit shared with gorillas and chimpanzees.

What colour is the tip of most African wild dogs' bushy tails, thought to work as a flag during hunts?

White tips may help pack members keep each other in sight on a hunt, though a few dogs lack the pale tip entirely.

Which deadly disease has nearly wiped out whole populations of African wild dogs?

Rabies nearly wiped out the packs of one southern African national park in 2006, so conservationists now help vaccinate pet dogs in the villages around it.

The Okavango Delta, where scientists studied African wild dog rallies before hunts, lies in which country?

Botswana holds one of the biggest remaining populations, and packs in its delta have been seen eating fruit just before setting out to hunt.

African wild dog mothers usually give birth in a burrow dug and abandoned by which other animal?

Aardvark holes, lined with grass, shelter the newborns for their first three to four weeks, after which the young become the whole pack's responsibility.

Mana Pools National Park, where the BBC filmed the African wild dog matriarch Tait, lies in which country?

Zimbabwe's Mana Pools lies on the Zambezi floodplain, and its name comes from the Shona word for 'four', after four large permanent pools.

Male African wild dogs usually take on the risky job of seizing which tusked prey animal by the nose?

Warthogs fight back with sharp tusks, which is why gripping the snout counts as dangerous work that usually falls to the males.

Which high-pitched sound accompanies the excited greeting rituals of African wild dogs, alongside whining?

Twittering and whining fill the air as the dogs greet one another, part of a vocal range that also runs to yelps, squeals, whispers and moans.

The African wild dog's fur is unusual among canids because it consists entirely of which kind of hair?

Stiff bristles with no underfur make for a thin covering, and the blackish skin can show through where the hair is sparse.

The African wild dog's blade-like 'trenchant heel' tooth is shared with which small South American canid?

Bush dog teeth have the same single cutting cusp on the lower carnassial, which lengthens the blade and lets a meal be sliced up and bolted faster.

West Africa's main stronghold for African wild dogs is Niokolo-Koba National Park, in which country?

Senegal's park shelters one of only two surviving groups of the West African subspecies, which is thought to number fewer than a hundred adults in all.

In an Ndebele folktale about why African wild dogs hunt in packs, which animal broke the gourd of medicine?

Zebra took fright at a black mamba and dropped the gourd, so Wild Dog's sick wife died; in the tale, the dogs have hunted zebras together ever since.

Tigrean shepherds once repelled African wild dogs with which objects, fearing a speared dog's deadly blood?

Pebbles were the safer choice: folk belief held that a wounded dog would dip its tail in its own blood and flick it at the attacker, causing instant death.

The oldest known African wild dog fossil, about 200,000 years old, was found in a cave in which country?

Israel's HaYonim Cave lies outside the animal's modern range altogether; fossils are so scarce that the species' evolution remains poorly understood.

Which Game of Thrones actor narrated Savage Kingdom, featuring the African wild dogs Teemana and Molao?

Charles Dance, who played Tywin Lannister, narrated the series; its episode The Pale Pack tells the story of the two pack leaders.

In the documentary A Wild Dog's Tale, the lone African wild dog Solo helped raise the young of which animals?

Jackals in the Okavango hunted alongside Solo, and the lone dog fed and cared for their young.

The African wild dog's slicing teeth suit which kind of diet, a label it shares with cats and eagles?

Hypercarnivore means an animal whose diet is more than 70% meat, and the African wild dog's lower carnassials form a single blade for carving it up quickly.

Hundreds of African wild dogs may once have gathered to follow the migrations of which southern antelope?

Springbok once trekked across southern Africa in vast herds, and packs that are normally a couple of dozen strong at most are thought to have merged to follow them.

African wild dogs vanished in 1991 from which famous East African park, returning only in 2012?

Serengeti's original packs carried a unique genetic signature, shared with the neighbouring Maasai Mara, that may now be extinct.

African wild dogs, about as tall as impala, are often caught by which poachers' devices set for antelope?

Snares catch them easily because the dogs move in packs and roam so widely, so field teams track down snared animals to cut them free.