Canines are no less famous than cats, and have always been animals that are quite closely related to humans.
As we may all know, the various pet dogs and stray dogs that we usually see everywhere are actually domesticated and selected by the gray wolf species at the earliest.
All pet dogs, mixed breed dogs, stray dogs, and working dogs are biologically a subspecies of the gray wolf , the domesticated subspecies of the gray wolf, canis lupus familiaris, of which canis lupus is the scientific name of the gray wolf, and the following familiaris is the subspecies name.
Most of the members of the canine family are social animals, and the protagonist of our article today is also the African wild dog lycaon pictus, first of all, let's admire its enchanting figure.
As the name suggests, the African Wild Dog is a relatively wild dog that lives in Africa. 2333 Just kidding, the name African wild dog is actually a direct translation of its English name african wild dog, because it has a mixed coat, also called a mottled wolf.
In addition to the lions and leopards of the feline family, the spotted hyenas of the hyena family, and the African wild dogs are also the beams of the African wild dog canidacy.
Other canines living in Africa, such as jackals and big-eared foxes, are weak in size and strength and cannot compete with true medium- and large predators.
By the way, the more funny thing is the black-backed jackal, with its agile movements (running fast) and thin body (no meat) to become a famous African passerby king, a variety of shopping, large predators do not like to take care of them.
Far from it. The size of the African wild dog is not very large, the adult shoulder height is about 60 to 76 cm, the weight is about 18 to 36 kg, and it is barely a large dog in the pet dog, but it can only be regarded as a medium to small size among the predators on the African continent.
But the African wild dog did not evolve into an insectivore like the big-eared fox, nor did it hone the ability to eat and drink like the black-backed jackal, but it relied on hunting to obtain food, and most of them chose medium-sized herbivores that weighed about twice as much as themselves, such as antelopes, warthogs, wildebeests, ostriches, etc., but also hunted smaller animals such as hares and canines.
As a social animal, each African wild dog has an average of 7 to 15 members in the survival group, but occasionally there are more than 20 or 30 large groups of African wild dogs.
In some large-scale migration seasons, there will even be hundreds of African wild dogs in southern Africa gathering together to hunt and survive, but after the antelope migration, they will disperse according to the previous member configuration and continue to live in small and medium-sized groups.
So although it is a social animal, the African wild dog does not have a clear territorial division, nor does it mark the territory and fight for territory, and there is little (not no at all) within the population.
Interestingly, in the african wild dog group, the members do not have a complex hierarchical structure and class division like the gray wolf, but a hierarchy of male and female sexes.
In simple terms, each African wild dog team has a male and a female and two leaders, and the leader has a monopoly on the right to breed offspring in the team, and the female African wild dog in the team is under the control of the female leader, and the male African wild dog is subordinate to the male leader.
Except for the two chiefs who are clear, there is no obvious hierarchy among the remaining team members, and everyone works together and eats together.
Moreover, the social structure of African wild dogs is very harmonious, if a puppy is born in the group, all members will share the responsibility of carrying a baby, and the African wild dog that returns from hunting will regurgitate the food so that the cubs can eat first.
Members who are unable to hunt due to injury or age, or who are not involved in the hunt, are also fed by their companions who have returned from the hunt, which is particularly friendly and harmonious.
Young males generally stay in the group to continue their lives, while females leave the group to find unrelated groups to join or form a new team with stray young males.
In addition, African wild dogs have an incredible high-end behavior, they will actually "vote".
In September 2017, a number of scientists from the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and Botswana jointly published an academic paper on African wild dogs. After a long period of observation and research, they found that the African wild dog population living in the Okavango Delta in Botswana performs a "mysterious ritual" before going out hunting — making a short, sharp sneeze sound from the nasal cavity, similar to sneezing.
If the leader of the group (one male and one female) first begins to sneeze, then as long as three of the remaining ordinary members follow the sneezing, they will all go out hunting (except for the sick and the young);
If the average member of the group starts sneezing first, about ten African wild dogs will need to follow the sneezing before they all go out hunting.
That is to say, even if the leader of the African wild dog population sends out a hunting application, it still depends on the meaning of the ordinary members, if there are not even three agreed, then everyone can only continue to rest, hunting or something next time.
As soon as this system of human voting was discovered, it caused an uproar in the academic community, and the African wild dog became an animal with special research value, and it is expected that more interesting behaviors can be found in them in the future.
#萌宠温情时刻 #