African gold wolf
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African gold wolf ( Canis anthus ) |
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| ( F. Cuvier , 1820) |
The African gold wolf ( Canis anthus ) is a representative of the wolf and jackal-like species ( Canis ) in northern Africa. It inhabits dry grasslands and savannah lands up to desert-like landscapes and feeds mainly omnivorous. Typical is the territorial way of life and the formation of families, which in addition to the parents and the offspring can also include the boys from the previous litter. The species was only recognized through genetic studies in 2015 , before the animals were considered an African branch of the golden jackal .
features
Habitus
The African golden wolf is outwardly very similar to the golden jackal and together with it represents a very typical representative of the wolf-like and jackal-like ( Canis ) with only a few specializations. Examined animals from Egypt reach a head-to-trunk length of 82.2 to 89.3 cm and a tail length of 29 to 34.7 cm. The body weight is 10 to 15 kg. In contrast, individuals from Tanzania are slightly smaller with a head-torso length of 74 to 78.5 cm, a tail length of 27 to 28 cm and a body weight of 6.3 to 7.7 kg. A sexual dimorphism is developed, females are about 12% lighter than males. This makes the African gold wolf one of the medium-sized representatives of the Canis genus . He is characterized by a slim physique with long legs and slender feet. The rear foot length is 19 to 21 cm. The ears stand erect and are about 10 to 12 cm long. The basic color of the fur is golden, depending on the season it varies from creamy yellow to dark tan. On the back, a mixture of black, brown and white hair forms a kind of saddle similar to the black-backed jackal ( Canis mesomelas ). The belly is generally lighter in color with a creamy tint. Individual spots of color on the chin, chest and face are individually distributed. The tail is bushy and ends in a dark point. Females have four pairs of teats .
Skull features
The relatively large skull is striking because of its comparatively short rostrum . Overall, it is more similar to that of the wolf ( Canis lupus ) and the coyote ( Canis latrans ) than those of the jackals. A lip-side cingulum, a bulge made of tooth enamel , appears on the first upper molar .
distribution and habitat
The distribution area of the African gold wolf includes the northern and eastern parts of Africa . The southern border extends roughly from Senegal in the west to northern Tanzania in the east. In the northeast, in Israel , it overlaps with the occurrence of the golden jackal ( Canis aureus ). The species prefers dry habitats . It therefore inhabits both the desert-like regions of the Sahara (with the exception of extremely arid landscapes) as well as the Sahel zone as well as savannah and grasslands. In the Somali highlands , the animals rise to an altitude of 3500 m. In East Africa, the African gold wolf occurs sympatric with the black-backed jackal ( Canis mesomelas ) and the striped jackal ( Canis adustus ), but in contrast to these it prefers much more open areas. In general, the African gold wolf is considered to be relatively common, in the Serengeti the population density is one individual per square kilometer.
Way of life
Territorial behavior
The African gold wolf is predominantly crepuscular and nocturnal, but regionally it also occurs more frequently during the day. The social behavior of the species can vary, depending on external conditions such as the local population density and the food available, which makes the animals very flexible. The basis is a permanent, reproductive couple with offspring, which can also include the young from the previous litter, who act as "helpers" during rearing. Several pairs may sometimes appear together, for example on cadavers. The animals live territorially and maintain individual territories, which however strongly overlap within the pair. The marking is done with urine , which both partners do at the same time in the same place with their legs raised. The size of the territories is variable and is in turn influenced by the external natural conditions, the decisive factor being the food supply. In the Serengeti in Tanzania it is 0.5 to 7.0 km², in the nearby Ngorongoro crater it is 2.0 up to 5.0 km². In the East African Trench , the average area size is 2.4 km². In contrast, the extent of the territories in the Somali highlands , which is much more strongly influenced by human interference than the East African savannas, varies between 7.9 and 48.2 km². Several core regions are distributed in the large territories, which are used depending on the circumstances. In addition, the animals increasingly appear individually, but always return to the partner. In the Djurdjura National Park , which covers part of the Atlas in northern Algeria , areas of 0.4 to 1.7 km² have been identified. Often those of the females are slightly larger than those of the males.
nutrition
In general, the African gold wolf is an omnivore that feeds on vertebrates and invertebrates as well as plants . In the Serengeti around 60% of the food is vertebrates, the prey spectrum ranges from lizards and snakes to birds and small and medium-sized mammals . Among the mammals, he preyed on gerbils and hares , but also larger animals such as Grant's gazelles and Thomson's gazelles . Occasionally, the animals also eat the carrion of the carcasses of large ungulates, such as the blue wildebeest and plains zebra . Vertebrates also make up more than 50% of the diet in the Djurdjura National Park in Algeria. These include a large number of small mammals such as garden dormice , wood mice and white-toothed shrews . In the excrement samples from central Niger that were examined , spiny mice and African bristle squirrels were also identified. Among the invertebrates, the African gold wolf mainly kills ants , beetles and scorpions . Stomach contents from Egypt and Sudan also contained numerous shell shells of snails . The proportion of plant-based food can sometimes be very high. Mainly sweet grasses and fruits are eaten, in Niger these include cordias and ziziphus . Mainly in more densely populated landscapes with intensive cattle breeding, livestock also represent part of the prey of the African gold wolf. According to surveys, a total of 1500 domestic sheep , domestic goats and various types of poultry fell victim to the predators in northern Ethiopia over a period of five years . In addition, as in the Nile Valley , it then feeds on a wide variety of field crops. The animals often cover their water requirements through food.
As a rule, the pairs hunt together, but the animals travel individually in larger territories such as the Somali highlands and then possibly hunt down smaller animals. Individual hunting is then likely to be related to the more dispersed food resources, which does not support group hunting. The animals can travel long distances in search of food, the prey is localized by hearing and shot down while jumping, but sometimes also dug up. When hunting in pairs, the prey success is significantly higher than with individual animals and much larger animals can also be killed. However, singular African gold wolves have also been observed, preying on antelopes four to five times their own weight.
Reproduction
It is assumed that the females are monoestrous , but there are also indications from Tanzania that offspring are born several times a year. The mating season in the Serengeti takes place between October and December. The gestation period is 63 days, so that the young are mostly born in the period from December to March, which coincides with the rainy season and the arrival of the large, herd-forming ungulates. In Egypt, offspring were seen from March to May. A litter consists of 1 to 9 young, with an average of 2 known from Tanzania. The young animals spend the first time in underground burrows, which were often created by aardvarks or warthogs . These usually have up to three entrances and are typically 2 to 3 m long and 0.5 to 1 m deep. In the first 14 weeks, the building is changed up to four times. The boys open their eyes after about nine days, the first teeth erupt after about eleven days. The suckling period lasts around eight to ten weeks. Both the father and mother animals and the young of the previous litter participate in the rearing of the offspring as "helpers" during the hunt. The support of these closely related animals significantly increases the survival rate of the new offspring. The maximum age of an animal in the Serengeti is around 14 years.
Predators and parasites
The spotted hyena is one of the most famous predators of the African gold wolf . When an animal appears in the vicinity of hiding places, the African gold wolf emits a howling warning sound and defends itself with bites on the trunk or in the genital area. According to blood tests on animals from the Serengeti, the African golden wolf can act as the host of the pathogens causing hepatitis contagiosa canis , parvovirus and feline infectious peritonitis .
Systematics and taxonomic history
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Phylogenetic system of the genus Canis according to Koepfli et al. 2015
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The African gold wolf has only been regarded as an independent species within the wolf and jackal-like ( Canis ) species since 2015 . Before it was considered a subspecies of the golden jackal ( Canis aureus ). However, molecular genetic analyzes in 2011 and 2012 provided indications that the African population of the golden jackal is more closely related to the wolf ( Canis lupus ) than to that of their supposed conspecifics in southern Eurasia. This was recognized by examining the North African population of the so-called "Egyptian jackal" ( Canis aureus lupaster ), which was then regarded as a subspecies of the golden jackal .
A study to clarify this question confirmed the results of the previous analyzes and showed that the lines of development of the Eurasian and African populations of the golden jackal already separated about 1.9 million years ago, the lines of common ("gray") wolf and African golden wolf on the other hand only 1.3 million years ago. The strong similarity between the golden jackal and the African golden wolf is therefore due to convergence , the cause of which is probably that the ancestors of today's golden jackal and the African golden wolf were subjected to similar selection pressures . The close genetic relationship between the African gold wolf and the wolf on the one hand and the clear morphological differences between the two species on the other justified the position of the gold wolf as a separate species. Another genetic analysis sees the development of the African gold wolf from a hybrid population of ancestors of today's wolf and the Ethiopian Wolfs on. Studies on skull morphology also show that at least two different types occur within the African gold wolf. The subspecies, once named Canis aureus lupaster , is characterized by its more elongated and wider skull than other representatives of the African gold wolf. Differences can also be shown with regard to the tooth features. Some authors therefore suspect at least two taxonomic units in wolves in Africa, possibly separated at the species level, but this requires further genetic studies.
The scientific species name Canis anthus goes back to Frédéric Cuvier , who first used it in 1820 in the work Histoire naturelle des mammifères , which he published together with Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire . In this he described animals from Senegal and referred to the species as Chacal du Sénégal. Cuvier traced the species addition anthus back to the Arcadian family Anthus , which according to Pliny could transform into wolves. In 1826, Eduard Rüppell described animals from North Africa under the same species name, which he called "wolfhounds". Since the holotype of the species has been lost and, in the opinion of some scientists, the illustration provided by Cuvier has little in common with the African gold wolf, they see the species name Canis anthus as a nomen dubium . Accordingly and under the condition that the African gold wolf represents a uniform species in Africa, Canis lupaster would be the correct species name. The name goes back to Friedrich Wilhelm Hemprich and Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg from 1833 for animals from Egypt.
Threat and protection
The IUCN does not currently manage the African gold wolf as an independent one. The species is present in numerous protected areas, most notably in the Serengeti - Masai Mara - Ngorongoro complex . However, individual stocks are declining locally, which is caused by greater industrialization and the expansion of intensive agriculture in some regions.
literature
- Klaus-Peter Koepfli, John Pollinger, Raquel Godinho, Jacqueline Robinson, Amanda Lea, Sarah Hendricks, Rena M. Schweizer, Olaf Thalmann, Pedro Silva, Zhenxin Fan, Andrey A. Yurchenko, Pavel Dobrynin, Alexey Makunin, James A. Cahill, Beth Shapiro, Francisco Álvares, José C. Brito, Eli Geffen, Jennifer A. Leonard, Kristofer M. Helgen, Warren E. Johnson, Stephen J. O'Brien, Blaire Van Valkenburgh, Robert K. Wayne: Genome-wide Evidence Reveals that African and Eurasian Golden Jackals Are Distinct Species. Current Biology 25 (16), 2015, pp. 2158-2165, doi : 10.1016 / j.cub.2015.06.060
- Patricia D. Moehlman and Yadwendradev V. Jhala: Canis aureus Golden Jackal (Asiatic Jackal, Common Jackal). In: Jonathan Kingdon, David Happold, Michael Hoffmann, Thomas Butynski, Meredith Happold and Jan Kalina (eds.): Mammals of Africa Volume V. Carnivores, Pangolins, Equids and Rhinoceroses. Bloomsbury, London, 2013, pp. 35-38
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c d Dale J. Osborn and Ibrahim Helmy: The contemporary land mammals of Egypt (including Sinai). Fieldiana NS 5, 1980, pp. 1–579 (pp. 360–371) ( [1] )
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Patricia D. Moehlman and Yadwendradev V. Jhala: Canis aureus Golden Jackal (Asiatic Jackal, Common Jackal). In: Jonathan Kingdon, David Happold, Michael Hoffmann, Thomas Butynski, Meredith Happold and Jan Kalina (eds.): Mammals of Africa Volume V. Carnivores, Pangolins, Equids and Rhinoceroses. Bloomsbury, London, 2013, pp. 35-38
- ↑ a b c Klaus-Peter Koepfli, John Pollinger, Raquel Godinho, Jacqueline Robinson, Amanda Lea, Sarah Hendricks, Rena M. Schweizer, Olaf Thalmann, Pedro Silva, Zhenxin Fan, Andrey A. Yurchenko, Pavel Dobrynin, Alexey Makunin, James A. Cahill, Beth Shapiro, Francisco Álvares, José C. Brito, Eli Geffen, Jennifer A. Leonard, Kristofer M. Helgen, Warren E. Johnson, Stephen J. O'Brien, Blaire Van Valkenburgh, Robert K. Wayne: Genome -wide Evidence Reveals that African and Eurasian Golden Jackals Are Distinct Species. Current Biology 25 (16), 2015, pp. 2158-2165, doi: 10.1016 / j.cub.2015.06.060
- ^ A b Todd K. Fuller, Audrone R. Biknevicius, Pieter W. Kat, Blaire van Valkenburgh and Robert K. Wayne: The ecology of three sympatric jackal species in the Rift valley of Kenya. African Journal of Ecology 27, 1989, pp. 313-323
- ↑ a b Ermias Admasu, Simon J. Thirgood, Afework Bekele and M. Karen Laurenson: Spatial ecology of golden jackal in farmland in the Ethiopian Highlands. African Journal of Ecology 42, 2004, pp. 144-152
- ↑ a b K. Khidas: Contribution à la connaissance du chacal doré, Facteurs modulant l'organization Social and Territorial de la sous-espèce algerienne (Canis aureus algirensis Wagner, 1841). Mammalia 54 (3), 1990, pp. 361-375
- ↑ Ramadhani BM Senzota: Plains gerbils Tatera robusta as prey of golden jackals and owls in the Serengeti National Park. Acta Theriologica 35 (1/2), 1990, pp. 157-161
- ↑ Gidey Yirga, Hans H. De Iongh, Herwig Leirs, Kindeya Gebrehiwot, Gebrehiwot Berhe, Tsehaye Asmelash, Haftu Gebrehiwot and Hans Bauer: The ecology of large carnivores in the highlands of northern Ethiopia. African Journal of Ecology 51, 2012, pp. 78-86
- ↑ Eli Knispel Rueness, Maria Gulbrandsen Asmyhr, Claudio Sillero-Zubiri, David W. Macdonald, Afework Bekele, Anagaw Atickem, Nils C. Stenseth: The Cryptic African Wolf: Canis aureus lupaster Is Not a Golden Jackal and Is Not Endemic to Egypt. PLoS ONE 6 (1), 2011, e16385, doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0016385
- ↑ Philippe Gaubert, Cécile Bloch, Slim Benyacoub, Adnan Abdelhamid, Paolo Pagani, Chabi Adéyèmi, Marc Sylvestre Djagoun, Arnaud Couloux, Sylvain Dufour: Reviving the African Wolf Canis lupus lupaster in North and West Africa: A Mitochondrial Lineage Ranging More than 6,000 km Wide. PLoS ONE 7 (8), 2012, e42740, doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0042740
- ↑ Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding, Jazmín Ramos-Madrigal, Jonas Niemann, Jose A. Samaniego Castruita, Filipe G. Vieira, Christian Carøe, Marc de Manuel Montero, Lukas Kuderna, Aitor Serres, Víctor Manuel González-Basallote, Yan-Hu Liu, Guo-Dong Wang, 1 Tomas Marques-Bonet, Siavash Mirarab, Carlos Fernandes, Philippe Gaubert, Klaus-Peter Koepfli, Jane Budd, Eli Knispel Rueness, Claudio Sillero, Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen, Bent Petersen, Thomas Safeitz-Ponten, Lutz Bachmann, Øystein Wiig, Anders J. Hansen and M. Thomas P. Gilbert: Interspecific Gene Flow Shaped the Evolution of the Genus Canis. Current Biology 28, 2018, pp. 3441-3449, doi: 10.1016 / j.cub.2018.08.041
- ↑ Mostafa A. Saleh and Mohammad I. Basuony: Mammals of the genus CanisLinnaeus, 1758 (Canidae, Carnivora) in Egypt. Egyptian Journal of Zoology 62, 2014, pp. 49-92, doi10.12816 / 0009337
- ↑ a b Suvi Viranta, Anagaw Atickem, Lars Werdelin and Nils Chr. Stenseth: Rediscovering a forgotten canid species. BMC Zoology 2, 2017, p. 6, doi: 10.1186 / s40850-017-0015-0
- ↑ Stoyan Stoyanov: Cranial variability and differentiation among golden jackals (Canis aureus) in Europe, Asia Minor and Africa. ZooKeys 917, 2020, pp. 141-164, doi: 10.3897 / zookeys.917.39449
- ↑ Frédéric Cuvier and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire: Histoire naturelle des mammifères avec des figures originales coloriées, dessinées d'après les animaux vivants. Volume 2. Paris 1819-1824 ( [2] )
- ↑ Eduard Rüppell: Atlas to the journey in northern Africa. Frankfurt am Main 1826, pp. 44–46 ( [3] )
- ^ Friedrich Wilhelm Hemprich and Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg: Symbolae Physicae quae ex Itinere Africam Borealem er Asoam Occidentalem Decas Secunda. Berlin, 1833, no page numbers ( [4] )
Web links
- Golden jackal: A new wolf species hiding in plain sight. The Guardian, July 30, 2015