African wild dog
laelaps | May 5, 2010African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) don't have it easy. Their taste for large mammalian prey puts them in competition with lions and spotted hyenas for both prey and living space, meaning that wild dogs regularly have their kills stolen or are even killed by other predators. In fact, the dogs may even be unintentionally attracting the attention of these other hunters.
Like other social carnivores, African wild dogs communicate with each other through body language and olfactory cues, but they also employ a variety of high-pitched…
laelaps | October 24, 2007
I have never heard sounds come out of a dog like the kind that I've heard out of a pack of excited African Wild Dogs (Lycaon pictus), the individual pictured above being a member of a large group kept at the WCS-run Bronx Zoo. While their species once ranged over 39 countries and their numbers were estimated as being as high as 500,000, today there are only 3,000-6,000 individuals left in a handful of countries, pressure from predator competition, disease, and killing by farmers/livestock owners make life very hard for these unique dogs. Indeed, they differ from all other known canids in…