The dhole, Asia's whistling red dog, once roamed as far as Europe
The dhole hunts by day in clans of about a dozen, sometimes more than 40, and brings down deer in forests shared with tigers and leopards. It is the only living member of its genus, and fewer than 2,500 mature adults survive, scattered across South, East and Southeast Asia.
Several features set it apart from wolves and jackals. Its skull is convex rather than dished in profile, it has one fewer lower molar, and its upper molars carry a single cusp instead of two to four. Those teeth, along with powerful jaw muscles that give it a slightly hyena-like face, are thought to help it slice and swallow meat fast, before scavengers can steal a kill. Its coat is reddish, brightest in winter, with a bushy tail tipped dark brown. English speakers have also called it the whistling dog and the red wolf.
The origin of the name is murky. The soldier Thomas Williamson may have been first to write it in English, in 1808, saying it was a local name in India's Ramghur district. Charles Hamilton Smith later tried to link it to a Turkish word for mad, a connection that does not hold up, and Merriam-Webster suggests the Kannada word for wolf. Brian Houghton Hodgson, who in 1833 thought the dhole might be the ancestor of domestic dogs, later recognised how different it was and created the genus Cuon.
In the Pleistocene its range was vast, reaching Europe, Sri Lanka, Borneo and Japan; one disputed jaw fragment from a Mexican cave may even place it in North America. Mitochondrial DNA from two European fossils aged 35,000 to 45,000 years showed they had far more genetic diversity than today's animals. A 2018 genome study found signs of ancient interbreeding with the African wild dog, even though their ranges are now far apart.
The IUCN lists it as endangered. Its clans have no strict hierarchy and include several breeding females. Losing habitat and prey, being killed for attacking livestock and catching diseases from domestic dogs have all driven it out of Central Asia and parts of Southeast Asia.
Source: Dhole
