Thedhole (Cuon alpinus) is acanid from Asia. Canid means that it is related to dogs and foxes. It is native toCentral,South andSoutheast Asia. There are many common names for it: Asiatic wild dog,[2] Indian wild dog, whistling dog, red dog,[3] and mountain wolf.
It is most closely related to species in thegenusCanis (dogs and wolves),[4][5]
During thePleistocene time period, the dhole lived inAsia,Europe andNorth America, but 12,000–18,000 years ago it died out everywhere except where it lives now.[6]
The dhole lives in big, loosely organised groups with several breeding females. The groups usually have about 12 dholes, but some have over 40.[3] It is awake in the day and hunts in groups. It usually eats medium sized to big hoofed animals.[7] In tropical forests, the dhole competes withtigers andleopards, targeting somewhat different prey species, but still with substantial dietary overlap.
It is listed asEndangered by theIUCN. The population is getting smaller, and there are probably fewer than 2,500 adults left. The reasons for this are lack ofhabitat, lack of food, competing with other animals, being hunted, and getting diseases from pet dogs.[1]
It is unclear where the word "dhole" comes from. The word was first used in English by soldier Thomas Williamson in 1808, who said that "dhole" is a native name for the animal used by people inRamghur district,India. In 1827,Charles Hamilton Smith said "dhole" comes from a language spoken in 'various parts of the East'. However,Richard Lydekker wrote about 80 years later that the word "dhole" was not used by people living where dholes are found. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary suggests the word comes from theKannada word tōḷa, meaning "wolf".
Peter Pallas gave dholes the scientific nameCanis alpinus ("mountain dog" in Latin) in 1811. He said it lived inAmurland (in EasternSiberia), to the east of theLena River. He added that dholes also lived around theYenisei River and that they sometimes crossed into China. However, dholes may not still live so far north today.
The British naturalistBrian Hodgson gave the dhole the scientific nameCanis primaevus ("original/primitive dog") and suggested that it was domesticated to become the pet dog. He later noticed how differently the dhole looked compared to other species in the genusCanis (containing wolves, pet dogs, coyotes and jackals) and put it in its own genus,Cuon, from theGreek word for 'dog'.
The first study on the evolution of the dhole was done by paleontologistErich Thenius, who found that dholes descend from an animal which looked like a golden jackal and which lived in the Pleistocene. The earliest known member of the genusCuon isCuon majori, which lived during theVillafranchian period in the early Pleistocene.C. majori looked more like other species in the genusCanis than modern dholes.
European dholes, which lived during the Late Middle Pleistocene, looked like modern dholes except they were much larger, getting to be as big as thegray wolf. Dholes became extinct in most of Europe during the end of theIce Age, though they may have survived up until the earlyHolocene in theIberian Peninsula and in northernItaly. During the Pleistocene, dholes also lived on islands in Asia where they are now extinct, such asSri Lanka,Borneo and possiblyPalawan in thePhilippines. Dholes also lived in North America, with fossils having been found inBeringia andMexico.
The dhole's distinctive appearance has made it difficult to say which other species in the dog family it is most closely related to.George Simpson suggested the dhole,African wild dog andbush dog were in the same subfamily (Simocyoninae) because all three species have similar teeth. However, other biologists such asJuliet Clutton-Brock found that dholes' bodies had more similarities with dogs in the generaCanis, theFalkland Islands wolf, and theArctic fox than the African wild dog and the bush dog. The similarities dholes share with African wild dogs and bush dogs are coincidental.
Some biologists believe the extinct genusXenocyon was the ancestor of the African wild dog and the dhole. However, later studies showed that the dhole and the African wild dog are closely related to other members of the genusCanis. This could be true because according to the zoologistReginald Pocock, there is a record of a dhole and a golden jackal having babies together in an animal collection inMadras.
In 2018, the DNA of all members of the genusCanis (except for theblack-backed jackal andside-striped jackal), the dhole and the African wild dog were compared. It was discovered that long ago, dholes and African wild dogs bred with each other. Today, these species live very far from each other. Thus, the study suggests that dholes may have once lived in theMiddle East, where African wild dogs inNorth Africa came and bred with the dholes. However, no fossils of dholes have been discovered in either the Middle East or North Africa yet.source?
However, studies on the dhole's DNA show little genetic difference between the subspecies. Dholes in Sumatra and Java may have been brough there by humans.
Dholes have been described as looking like a mixture between agray wolf and ared fox. They are also "cat-like" because of their slender back and legs, and its head has a shape like ahyena's due to the short snout. Dholes have sixmolars on their lower jaw, unlike other canids which have seven. Dholes have special teeth which help them to eat the meat from their prey quickly, preventing other animals from stealing their food.
Adult female dholes can weigh from 10 to 17 kg (22 to 37 lb), while adult male dholes may weigh from 15 to 21 kg (33 to 46 lb). Dholes are 43 to 50 cm (17 to 22 in) tall at the shoulder and are 91 cm (3 ft) long, not including the tail. Dholes have oval-shaped ears.
Dholes are usually reddish, and they may become brighter red in winter. The throat, chest, flanks, and belly and the upper parts of the legs are yellowish. The lower parts of the legs are whitish, with dark brownish bands on the front legs. The tail is very fluffy and black. Dholes have shorter and rougher fur in summer. Dholes may moult (shed their fur to grow new fur) from March to May.
Dholes can whistle, although how they whistle is unknown. They whistle to communicate with the rest of the pack while travelling through thick forest. When attacking prey, they emit screaming KaKaKaKAA sounds. Other sounds include whines, growls, screams, chatterings and yapping cries. Unlike wolves, dholes do not howl or bark.
In Central Asia, dholes mainly live in mountainous areas. Dholes which live to the west are mainly found in meadows andsteppes, while dholes which live to the east mainly live in thetaiga. Dholes may also go to the seashore. In India, Myanmar, Indochina (Laos,Cambodia andVietnam), Indonesia and China, dholes mainly live in forests in mountains, although they may sometimes live in grasslands.
The dhole might continue to live in theTunkinsky National Park in southernSiberia nearLake Baikal.[8] Dholes may still live in thePrimorsky Krai province in far eastern Russia, where it was considered a rare and endangered species in 2004. There are unconfirmed sightings of dholes in the Pikthsa-Tigrovy Dom protected forest area. Elsewhere in Russia, no sightings of dholes have been reported since the late 1970s.
In recent years, one dhole was caught in southernChina'sJiangxi district. In 2011 to 2013, local government officials and herders reported the presence of several packs of dholes living in high mountains in theKarakoram region of theXinjiang Autonomous Region. Dholes have also recently been seen in the Altun Mountains near Tibet.[9] Dholes occur in small numbers inGansu Province, with sightings of several packs in 2006 and again in 2013-2014.
InBhutan, dholes were poisoned in the 1970s to protect livestock, but the campaign stopped and the population of dholes increased there in the 1990s.[11]
Dholes still live in northeastern and southeasternBangladesh. However, most sightings of dholes in Bangladesh are of small groups or single dholes, and the dholes in Bangladesh may not continue to breed for long.
Dholes resting in a zoo in India
The presence of dholes inMyanmar was confirmed by camera-trapping in 11 areas. In 2015, dholes and tigers were recorded by camera-traps for the first time in the hill forests ofKaren State.[12]
There are few large packs of dholes in theMalaysian Peninsula,Sumatra,Java,Vietnam andThailand. In 2014, camera-trap videos in the rainforests on mountains in Sumatra showed dholes continue to live there.[13]
In the 1990s, two Turkish scientists claimed to have seen dholes in northeasternTurkey.[14] Some scientists believe they were true, but others question this claim. Also, one dhole may have been shot in the Caucasus Mountains in 2013; its remains (including a skull) were studied by a biologist in May 2015, who decided the skull was from a dhole.[15] In August 2015, researchers fromSofia,Bulgaria tried to find this population of dholes in Turkey. On October 12, 2015, this research team concluded that there is no clear evidence of dholes continuing to live in Turkey or the Caucasus Mountains.
Dholes were first described in European literature in 1794 by a Russian traveller named Pesterev, who saw dholes during his travels in far easternRussia. He said that dholes regularly huntAlpine ibexes in packs, and that it looks like thegolden jackal.
↑Zhang, H.; Chen, L. (2010). "The complete mitochondrial genome of dhole Cuon alpinus: phylogenetic analysis and dating evolutionary divergence within canidae".Molecular Biology Reports.38 (3):1651–1660.doi:10.1007/s11033-010-0276-y.PMID20859694.S2CID7476436.
↑Durbin L.S.et al (2004).DholeCuon alpinus (Pallas 1811), in Sillero-Zubiri, C., Hoffmann, M. & Macdonald, D.W. (eds.)Canids: foxes, wolves, jackals and dogs: status survey and conservation action plan. IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. x + pp. 210–219
↑Xue Yadong; Li Diqiang; Xiao Wenfa; Zhang Yuguang; Feng Bin; Jia Heng (2015). "Records of the dhole (Cuon alpinus) in an arid region of the Altun Mountains in western China".European Journal of Wildlife Research.61 (#6):903–907.doi:10.1007/s10344-015-0947-z.S2CID16752357.
↑Saw Sha Bwe Moo; Froese, G.Z.L.; Gray, T. N. E. (2017). "First structured camera-trap surveys in Karen State, Myanmar, reveal high diversity of globally threatened mammals".Oryx: First View.52 (#3):1–7.doi:10.1017/S0030605316001113.S2CID90131487.
↑Serez Mehment, Eroglu Mahmut (1994). "A new threatened wolf species,Cuon alpinus hesperius Afanasiev and Zolatarev, 1935 in Turkey".Council of Europe Environmental Encounters Series.17:103–106.
