As the number one killer on the African savannah, the lion's strength is naturally beyond doubt. However, in addition to lions in the African steppe, there are also "steppe brothers" flat-headed brothers, and "steppe three brothers" who are good at using the means of "pulling out anus" - African wild dogs, although the behavior of "three brothers" is shameful, but its strength is very strong.
Wild dogs on the African savannah, instead of preying on animals such as the high-horned antelope, which are at the top of the recipe, are obsessed with the taste of baboon meat, knowing that these primates are very difficult to deal with, even the baboon's number one predator, lions and leopards, sometimes reluctant to provoke them, but this group of wild dogs is very fond of hunting baboons, and even killed more than 50 baboons in three years! This really makes the baboons sad for the listeners, and the hearers cry. So what really happened during this period, let's take a look at it!
The story takes place in 2015 when a zoologist named Esther van der Meer arrives in the African region and plans to monitor several local wild dog populations over the long term in Manatan National Park in northern Zimbabwe. Over the next two years, van der Meer's team directly recorded 29 African wild dog hunts using radio telemetry and 94 related hunting videos using surveillance equipment, and collected and analyzed up to 30 stool samples associated with prey information to determine the food composition of the wild dog population. When they summarized all the data, they found that the food composition of this group of wild dogs had changed greatly compared to that of wild dogs in other regions, and they were frantically hunting a local kind of dolphin-tailed baboon!
The data shows that between 2015 and 2017, the African wild dog killed a total of 96 high-horned antelope, 54 baboons and a small number of other animals. While the high-horned antelope is still the main food source for wild dogs, the fact that they prey on so many baboons is enough to prove that their diet has changed dramatically!
Scientists are shocked to know that under normal circumstances, baboons are definitely not their preferred prey, because baboons as social animals, the number of populations is usually relatively large, and adult baboons are aggressive and sharp canine teeth, are enough to deter African wild dogs, so the difficulty of hunting baboons is not lower than that of high horned antelopes, and the amount of meat of a baboon is also less visible than that of high horned antelopes, so in general wild dogs do not choose to catch baboons so frequently, but by analyzing the data in these three years, But it is enough to prove that this group of African wild dogs has indeed made baboons their primary hunting target.
The van der Meyer team was also puzzled by this, and in order to solve this mystery, scientists have carried out a lot of research.
They found that the frequency with which African wild dogs prey on high-horned antelope and baboons varied with the seasons. During the rainy season, they usually tend to prey on the high-horned antelope, but during the dry season, the frequency of predation on baboons increases significantly. This choice is mainly derived from African wild dogs in order to feed their offspring. Whenever the rainy season comes, African wild dogs and high-horned antelopes will usher in the calfing season, and African wild dogs usually choose high-horned antelopes in order to catch enough food.
However, under normal circumstances, it takes a lot of time to catch a high-horned antelope, because African wild dogs usually choose to hunt with endurance, but in the calfing season, there will be many female high-horned antelopes and young high-horned antelopes in poor health for them to catch, at which time not only the success rate will become higher, but also enough food to raise offspring.
However, once the rainy season is over, the success rate of catching a high-horned antelope will return to the previous level, often spending about 3.5 hours a day to hunt, which is already the limit of their hunting for wild dogs, so whenever the dry season comes, African wild dogs will have the idea of changing prey targets.
In general, it is also not easy to catch a baboon under normal circumstances due to its gregarious and tree-climbing characteristics, and sometimes causing harm to African wild dogs. The environment of Manatan National Park has changed that. Because trees are sparse and baboons are significantly weaker than high-horned antelopes, african wild dogs can often be captured before they escape to the trees. At this time, the time cost of catching a baboon is significantly lower than that of catching a high-horned antelope.
Therefore, this group of African wild dogs will choose to catch different prey at different times of the year. This produces this strange phenomenon, but in the end it is simply to adapt to the environment and survive well.