24 Facts About African wolf

African wolf or golden wolf, formerly known as the African golden jackal, is a canine native to North Africa, West Africa, the Sahel, northern East Africa, and the Horn of Africa.

The African wolf is a monogamous and territorial species; offspring remain with the family to assist in raising their parents' younger pups.

African wolf was first recognised as being a separate species from the golden jackal by Frederic Cuvier in 1820, who described it as being a more elegant animal, with a more melodic voice and a less strong odour.

In 1981, zoologist Walter Ferguson argued in favor of lupaster being a subspecies of the gray African wolf based on cranial measurements, stating that the classing of the animal as a jackal was based solely on the animal's small size, and predated the discovery of, which is intermediate in size between and lupaster.

Furthermore, the sampled African wolf specimens displayed much more nucleotide and haplotype diversity than that present in Indian and Himalayan wolves, thus indicating a larger ancestral population, and an effective extant population of around 80,000 females.

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Traces of African wolf DNA were identified in golden jackals in Israel, which adjoins Egypt, thus indicating the presence of a hybrid zone.

The study supports the African wolf being distinct from the golden jackal, and with the Ethiopian wolf being genetically basal to both.

Two genetically distinct African wolf populations exist in northwestern and eastern Africa.

The Himalayan wolf shares a maternal lineage with the African wolf, and possesses a unique paternal lineage that falls between the gray wolf and the African wolf.

However, a study showed that the genetic divergence of all of the African wolf wolves occurred between 50,000 and 10,500 years ago, with most occurring between 30,000 and 16,000 years ago during the Late Glacial Maximum.

Vocabulary of the African wolf is similar to that of the domestic dog, with seven sounds having been recorded.

The African wolf's vocalizations include howls, barks, growls, whines and cackles.

On capturing large prey, the African wolf makes no attempt to kill it; instead it rips open the belly and eats the entrails.

The African wolf often carries away more food than it can consume, and caches the surplus, which is generally recovered within 24 hours.

In Tanzania, the African wolf is limited to a small area of the north between the western slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and the centre of the Serengeti.

In 2012, African wolf wolves were photographed in Morocco's Azilal Province at an elevation of 1,800 meters.

African wolf generally manages to avoid competing with black-backed and side-striped jackals by occupying a different habitat and being more active during the daytime.

Nevertheless, the African wolf has been known to kill the pups of black-backed jackals, but has in turn been observed to be dominated by adults during disputes over carcasses.

The African wolf was sacred in Lycopolis, whose inhabitants would mummify wolves and store them in chambers, as opposed to other areas of Egypt, where wolves were buried at their place of death.

Westermarck noted that the African wolf was associated with more nefarious qualities: it was said that a child who eats African wolf flesh before reaching puberty will be forever cursed with misfortune and that scribes and saintly persons refrain from consuming it even in areas where it is socially acceptable, as doing so would render their charms useless.

African wolf is not common in Neolithic rock art, though it does occasionally appear; a definite portrayal is shown on the Kef Messiouer cave in Algeria's Tebessa Province, where it is shown feeding on a wild boar carcass alongside a lion pride.

African wolf plays a prominent role in the Serer religion's creation myth, where it is viewed as the first living creature created by Roog, the Supreme God and Creator.

The African wolf was the first intelligent creature on Earth, and it is believed that it will remain on Earth after human beings have returned to the divine.

The movements of the African wolf are carefully observed, because the animal is viewed as a seer who came from the transcendence and maintains links with it.