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Wildlife
Plantlife

Wildlife: Mammals - Wild Dog 2/3

Amphibians | Birds | Mammals | Reptiles | Wildlife

Lycaon Pictus, Wild Dog, Wildehond, Wildem Hund.

Behaviour
The wild dog pack will hunt at day, towards the moon light, moving along roads and game paths. They will combine paths and bush to prey. The wild dog is most active early in the morning and late in the evening. Resting in cover or lying in water during the midday heat. The wild dog will reach speeds up to 56 kilometres and hour while hunting down prey. The wild dog uses force to part the prey from all body parts and can eat 100 kilogramms of meat with a pack of 9 within fifteen minutes. Packs vary in size from containing two adults with pups to fifty dogs. Usually 6 to 8 adults and up to 18 pups. There are intense social interactions, most involving mutual sniffling and muzzle licking. Wild dogs have a very strong bodily odour to them.

At times packs of wild dogs will drive off hyaena's when those are eating from killed prey. Some dogs will guard the site of the kill after the hunt is over. There is one record of warthogs chasing wild dogs away from a kill. Dogs disperse in single sex groups of up to five animals. New packs form when dispersing groups of opposite sexes meet. In Kruger National Park packs have home ranges of 400 to 1 100 square kilometres. The wild dog keeps contact with other individuals by means of calls carrying over 2 to 3 kilometres. The alarm call is a short, deep, growly bark.

Field Signs
Since wild dogs are very rare nowadays, only six countries hold more than 100 indivuals each, it is very hard to find field signs. The paw however resembles a dogs paw quite closely. 

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Hyaena | Impala | Leopard | Lion
Warthog | Wild Dog | Zebra