The jackal is a creature of mixed proportions among the population, with some saying that it is the most ferocious presence in the forest, preying on poultry and livestock and attacking humans; some saying that it specializes in wild boar, which is conducive to agricultural production and protects the people who walk at night in the forest.
In fact, many rural post-80s, post-90s, more or less will be frightened by adults with jackals, as long as children do not obey, adults will say "jackals will disobey, love to cry children take away", this trick has been tried and tested. However, most of the post-80s and post-90s have never seen jackals.
Jackal in the woods
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" > a jackal and a dog, not afraid of tigers and leopards</h1>
The jackal, also known as the red-haired dog and the jackal, is a small and medium-sized canine mainly distributed in Asia. They are very adaptable, both heat-resistant and hardy, and almost all other habitat types can be controlled except for some extreme environments, but in terms of environmental preferences, jackals prefer hills and mountains.
Historically, China is the main distribution area of jackals, from south to north, from east to west, there are 5 subspecies, of which the Kashmiri jackal lives in the southwest and southern Tibet, the Sichuan jackal lives in western Sichuan, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, the West Asian jackal lives only in Xinjiang, the East Asian jackal lives in the northeast, and most of the forests south of the Yangtze River are Chinese jackals.
Distribution map of jackals
Different subspecies of jackals will have certain differences in coat color, but overall, they are similar. Most of the jackals in China are manifested as white belly and black mouth, thick and rough hair, and the coat color on the body is mainly reddish brown, but it will change with the change of seasons.
They weigh about the same as the average rural dog, or even a little smaller, and are 15-32 kg in adulthood, mostly concentrated in about 20 kg, and only a few larger individuals can reach more than 30 kg. Although jackals are similar in appearance to wolves and dogs, their snouts are sharper and look more cunning, with three points resembling foxes.
The jackal is a very fierce and alert animal, often frolicking in the mountains and forests, although the jackal has the ability to move around the clock, but has a certain degree of morning and dusk, especially during the dusk, the activity of the jackal will become more frequent.
Many people say that the jackal is a kind of beast that is not afraid of tigers and leopards, they live in large groups, they do not avoid tigers when they meet them, and they can even compete with tigers.
It is rumored that there have been many stories of jackals fighting with Bengal tigers in India, and the two sides fought for food, but each time the tigers were besieged by the jackals, biting several jackals and failing to break out of the encirclement, and finally their physical strength was seriously depleted, and they were bitten alive by the jackals.
Jackals grab food
The story has no way to verify, but from a scientific point of view, such an event as the tiger fighting the jackal will not happen, and even if it happens, the tiger is fully equipped with the ability to escape.
Because the forest ecosystem is different from the grassland environment, there are many shelters and complex terrain, which is conducive to individual action rather than group activities, which is why it is difficult for lions to stand out from the siege by hyenas, while wolves and jackals cannot trap tigers.
Of course, the jackals are really not afraid of tigers and leopards, they have a social structure that is not inferior to wolves, the closeness between the members is very high, and under the leadership of the jackal king, they can launch organized and disciplined attacks. And jackals are good at hunting, brave and fierce, even if they are tigers and leopards, they are not willing to entangle with such beasts.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" > fierce jackal herd, agricultural beneficial animal</h1>
Judging the strength of wild animals, weight is a very important factor. Although the jackals are fierce, their size is not large, so a single jackal is not a tiger, leopard, wolf opponent, or even a large fierce dog, but once the group is formed, the jackal is basically "invincible".
Jackals are very united animals, a small jackal herd, often family-style, composed of three or five members, while a large jackal herd of more than a dozen is composed of multiple family-style jackals. They all obeyed the orders of the Jackal King, and at the sound of an order, the jackals would not hesitate to pounce on the prey, and the whole hunting process was very ferocious.
Herds of jackals prey on wild boars
Compared with wolves, jackals have a more mixed diet, in addition to the common meat eating, it has also been observed to eat corn, fruits and other plant foods, people speculate that it may be related to the acquisition of nutrients.
For example, there is a tall canine in South America: the maned wolf, people initially in captivity, always feed them meat, never give fruit and other plants, after a period of time these maned wolves have shown certain pathological characteristics, and later people tried to add some fruits to the food, this problem was solved.
maned wolf
In the 1950s and 1980s, the number of wild boars in China was still relatively large, and they often haunted the fields, destroying crops and causing great economic losses to farmers.
Wild boars are different from ordinary plant-eating animals, just eat a little crop so simple, they will take advantage of the night, come to the field, not only eat, but also waste, often overnight, a whole field of crops will be destroyed.
You must know that in that era when the standard of living was not very high, an acre of land may be the source of income for a family throughout the year, and the harm of wild boars is tantamount to cutting off the farmers' rations for a year.
wild boar
The presence of jackals in the food chain inhibits the development of wild boars. Although the jackals are not large, they are social animals, so in terms of prey preferences, some larger ungulates are often selected, and the abundant wild boar at that time was one of the best choices.
Due to the jackal's special skull structure and hard teeth, so that they have a strong ability to bite, when hunting wild boar, usually rush up, from all directions to bite the wild boar, because the jackal's attack site is not clearly targeted, so the wild boar will not be bitten to death immediately, the huge pain brings a huge scream, and also brings a huge shock to other wild animals, so the hundred beasts in the forest are afraid of the jackal herd. Since the main predator of jackals is wild boar, they are beneficial animals for agricultural production.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" > the rumored jackal, will it really protect people? </h1>
In many rural areas, jackals are both good and evil animals, and some people think that they are fierce and will attack humans, and some people think that they not only do not attack people, but even protect humans. One of the most typical theories is that the jackal will secretly escort pedestrians.
A similar story has been recorded in The Beauty of Animals, saying that when people walk on mountain roads at night, the jackals will follow and escort them all the way until people come out of the edge of the forest, and the jackals will return to the mountains.
If you encounter people who spend the night in the wild, the jackal will sprinkle some urine around the human habitat, and when the beasts approach and smell the jackal's urine, they will walk away in fear, thus achieving the purpose of protecting people.
There are many more legends about the jackal's friendliness to humans, most of the stories depict the jackal as a kind of human being, beyond the ordinary animals, so in real life, the jackal will really protect humans?
I think it is impossible, in fact, in Chinese folk tales, it is not uncommon to give human wisdom or emotion to animals, such as "white fox repays grace", "white snake repays grace", etc., can see similar story structure. In the past, although the jackal was also a common animal, it was much more mysterious than wolves, tigers, leopards and other animals.
Most of the stories have a certain archetype, and the jackal follows the pedestrian without attacking, most likely related to their habits. Man is larger than most creatures in the world, and because he walks upright, he is a large and unpleasant object in the eyes of wild animals.
Jackals are canines, the way to judge the strength of the opponent, mainly rely on horizontal vision, if the opponent is higher than their own level of sight too much, and will be considered strong, which is why many stray dog attacks in the victims, mostly women, children, because compared to adult men, women, children's height is shorter.
The way dogs judge sailors' strength
Although the jackals are fierce, their personalities are alert and afraid of people, most of the time, when encountering pedestrians, they will be far away, and the animals in the forest are afraid of jackals, so there are jackals around humans, and other wild animals have long been frightened and scattered, thus causing the subjective misunderstanding of jackals to protect humans.
In fact, jackals are not much different from other predators, they will prey on wild boars and other wild animals that are harmful to agricultural production, and will also prey on poultry and livestock, causing losses to people, of course, if children encounter jackals, there is a high probability that they will be attacked.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" > a large number of jackals and mysteriously disappeared</h1>
The reason why jackals give people a very mysterious feeling, in addition to their own habits are not close to people, but also related to their "mysterious" disappearance.
Before the 1980s, most parts of China still lived more jackals, they often haunt the mountains and forests, especially in the Jiangxi area, jackals are amazing, even in the early morning people can see them playing on the field.
But since the 1980s, jackals have disappeared so quickly that they seem to disappear overnight, leaving people with many questions.
There are many reasons for the rapid disappearance of jackals, and their disappearance is immediately after the tiger and leopard, so the reasons are naturally very similar. People reclaim a large number of wasteland, destroy the habitat of wild animals, resulting in a decrease in ungulates, the conflict between humans and beasts of prey intensified, and predators such as jackals are naturally killed by people's retaliation.
However, in addition to the direct impact of human factors, disease and population decline also affect the development of jackal populations. For example, the period of disappearance of a large number of jackals coincided with the rise of the domestic "Tibetan mastiff fever", and the increase in a large number of domestic dogs increased the probability of transmitting canine distemper and rabies to other canines in the same area.
Jackal hunting chart
In general, the jackals disappeared faster than the tigers, leopards and wolves, naturally leaving a layer of mystery, and people still do not understand the whole reason for the disappearance of the jackals in large numbers. Nowadays, the number of wild jackals in China is very rare, and they can only be seen in some rare deep mountain forests such as Chuanxi.
They have high environmental requirements and can only survive if they have a high level of prey population. As for the claim that jackals protect people, we should listen to them as stories, after all, they are just real predators and do not have human emotions.
(Follow me for interesting and informative animal knowledge.) ）