Dhole

The dhole or Asian wild dog (Cuon alpinus) remains somewhat mysterious, now classed as endangered by the IUCN with a declining population of less than 2500 adults.  This member of the canid family is genetically much closer to the African wild dog than to near neighbours such as golden jackal or Indian wolf.  Dholes are found in Central, South, East Asia, and Southeast Asia, but until 12,000 to 18,000 years ago used to range throughout Asia, Europe, and North America.  One of their greatest threats currently is disease transfer from domestic dogs.

Dholes are highly social, live in clans of 12 – 40 individuals without rigid dominance hierarchies. Females give birth to 4-6 pups in early spring, the pups grow up alongside other litters in large and often elaborate dens, with one or more adults always staying at the den to guard the pups.  By six months old the pups will join the rest of the pack in hunting.

They are known as diurnal hunters, beginning their hunts in the early morning in variously sized packs, the chase will often be less one kilometre, but may take several hours with different dholes taking over the lead.  Once the prey is exhausted, the pack will group together to bring the beast down from behind while a lead dhole will maintain a bite-hold to the nose or face until death.  Depending on group size, their prey can be as big as an adult nilgai or sambar deer gaur, and like tigers and leopards they will commonly take langurs, wild boar, chital deer and cattle or goats, hence there is significant competition.  There are many reports of dholes driving tigers, leopards and bears from their kills.  Like dogs, dhole enjoy the addition of fruits, vegetables, herbs and grasses to their diet.

Dholes are dog-like in appearance, almost a cross between a red fox and a grey wolf but with a convex rather than concave skull, and more cat-like slender limbs and long backbone.  Their tails are particularly fluffy, and their ears are upright and slightly rounded, though less so then the African painted dogs.  A number of sub-species have been historically proposed, but modern genotype studies have not found clear subspecific distinctions, but in general the dholes seen in India, East Russia, Sumatra and China south of the Yangtze River have a reddish coat with paler neck, muzzle and underbelly.  Populations in Himalayan regions, Eastern Russia and China, are more yellowish grey, and somewhere in-between yellowish-red in Mongolia, Thailand, Malaysia, etc…

In India the dhole goes by many names, largely unflattering owing to their fearsome reputation, like ‘devil dog’, ‘red devil’ or ‘hounds of Kali’, and they are thought to have been variously portrayed as hellhounds in European literature between the 5^th and 16^th Century.  Despite remaining shy and vicious in captivity, they are not actually known to attack humans and seemingly also prefer to avoid domestic livestock even when grazing away from human protection.