The dhole, a fast, cunning, intelligent predator of the Asian jungles. One that is on the brink of extinction, yet not many people know of their existence.
Are these animals the ruthless beasts as portrayed by Rudyard Kipling? Or are they an animal...
Dholes are social predators that live in groups called packs. A dhole pack consists of a male and normally one female that breeds and have puppies and all of the other adults are related to the breeding pair, and the breeding pair are the only dholes that are socially allowed to have pups and the other adults, which would be the offspring of previous litters, help care for the current puppies.
Within the pack, dholes play with each other, help raise the pups, and figure out who's higher on the hierarchy to strengthen their social bonds, and they wag their tails to say "I wanna play do you?" and they roll over on their backs to say "I submit!" just like our domestic dogs. Dholes sometimes will squabble with each other but despite that, they don't act aggressively towards each other as wolves do, and when feeding on a kill, they'll actually let their pups eat first.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
(Photo Credit goes to Hrishikesh Rajaram)
Caring for the pups is one of the biggest parts of pack life, but before a new litter even arrives, part of the pack will disperse and find their own territory, that way in their natal pack there aren't too many mouths to feed. When the breeding female gives birth she can have around 8 pups or more in a litter in the wild. The pups and their mother are then fed by the rest of the pack with regurgitated food once the pups are old enough to eat solid food.
In the Baluran National Park, Java, dholes will use burrows made by other animals on slopes that are steep and covered in dense vegetation, and the burrows they choose are at least on the opposite side of where people are. They don't stay in the same dens forever, they switch dens which they do every 2 weeks.
When the pack needs to go hunting, scientists believe one or two adults will stay behind to babysit the pups to keep them safe from danger and when the pups can go with the pack to travel, they'll be escorted by one or two adults.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
(Photo Credits goes to Grahm S. Jones and The Wilds)
Dholes packs have home ranges that are anywhere from 12-202.8 square kilometers. The dhole packs of central India have the biggest home ranges. The size of pack home ranges probably depends on prey density, the pack's size, and other features of the habitat a pack lives in.
When A.J.T Johnsingh did his study on dholes, he did not see two dhole packs using the same areas, which back then suggested they were territorial, but now, modern-day observations of territorial disputes show that dholes are territorial and packs not only work together to raise pups and hunt but also to protect their hunting grounds. And when defending their territories, dhole packs have a stronger reaction to strangers in their territories than to neighbors.
A vocalization that sets dholes apart from all other canids is the whistle, giving them the name of "Whistling dogs" or some even like to call them "the whistling hunters". Hunting in the Asian forests means they sometimes get separated, so lone dholes whistle to find their packmates, and dholes will also whistle to reassemble after failed hunts.
