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...
Unlike foxes, coyotes, raccoon dogs, and even wolves in some places which eat both meat and plants, dholes are hypercarnivores. Meaning you will never find them eating things like berries or any plant matter whatsoever.
Dholes mostly hunt ungulates, which are what we refer to as hoofed animals. They hunt wild boar, muntjacs, chital deer, sambar deer, rusa deer, Nilgiri tahr, nilgai antelope, and they've even been known to hunt fully-grown banteng, a species of wild cattle.
Across their range, Sambar Deer are the most common prey item for them. In Central India, Chital Deer and Sambar Deer are their favorite prey, and in two studies (One in Laos and the other in both Laos and Cambodia) Muntjacs were shown to be their favorite prey, and in the Cambodia site banteng were their second favorite prey, but this, however, may be due to the lack of other medium-sized ungulates in that region.
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(Photo Credit goes to Brent Huffman) Chital Deer
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(Photo Credit goes to Sylvain Cordier) Sambar Deer
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(Photo Credit goes to Ashok Jain) Red Muntjac
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