12 Facts About Black-backed jackal

Black-backed jackal, called the silver-backed jackal, is a medium-sized canine native to eastern and southern Africa.

The black-backed jackal has a wide array of food sources, feeding on small to medium-sized animals, as well as plant matter and human refuse.

The black-backed jackal is relatively unspecialised, and can thrive in a wide variety of habitats, including deserts, as its kidneys are well adapted for water deprivation.

Juliet Clutton-Brock classed the black-backed jackal as being closely related to the side-striped jackal, based on cranial and dental characters.

In 2017, jackal relationships were further explored, with an mDNA study finding that the two black-backed jackal subspecies had diverged from each other 1.

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Black-backed jackal is a fox-like canid with a slender body, long legs, and large ears.

Black-backed jackal is a monogamous and territorial animal, whose social organisation greatly resembles that of the golden jackal.

Unlike golden jackals, which have comparatively amicable intrapack relationships, black-backed jackal pups become increasingly quarrelsome as they age, and establish more rigid dominance hierarchies.

Black-backed jackal pups are vulnerable to African golden wolves, ratels, and spotted and brown hyenas.

One story explains that the black-backed jackal gained its dark saddle when it offered to carry the Sun on its back.

An alternative account comes from the !Kung people, whose folklore tells that the Black-backed jackal received the burn on its back as a punishment for its scavenging habits.

Black-backed jackal coursing was first introduced to the Cape Colony in the 1820s by Lord Charles Somerset, who as an avid fox hunter, sought a more effective method of managing jackal populations, as shooting proved ineffective.