Wild Dogs

The Coyote is only found in North America, where it is still quite common on the praires and the plains, despite being extensively hunted by man. The behaviour of coyotes is very similar to that of wolves but the animals themselves are only about half size, weighing about forty pounds when adult. The coyote feeds on small mammals and thus can live in semi-desert country which would not support a wolf pack. Persecution by man has caused the adaptable coyote to change its habits. Once they were pack animals but now are often solitary scavengers.

The coyote has achieved a certain notoriety because of the cunning with which it avoids man's traps and because of the complexity and resonance of its howl. Two coyotes singing can sound like many times that number. The gestation period is the same as for the dog, but the coyote has never seriously been considered an ancestor of the domestic dog, because most of the evidence suggests that the dog was first domesticated in the Middle East, while the coyote is only found in North America.

There are four species of Jackal inhabiting Africa and southern Asia. The are closely related but differ markedly in colouring. Now they are mainly solitary animals, scavenging at the kills of larger carnivores, eating carrion and killing small mammals for themselves. Like most of the wild dogs they are nocturnal in habit. Occasionally small packs of jackals hunt together, and it is believed that in the past they were pack animals and that the advance civilization made them change their habits. The jackals is about the size of the coyote and can interbreed with both dogs and wolves.