Golden jackal, called common jackal, is a wolf-like canid that is native to Southeast Europe, Southwest Asia, South Asia, and regions of Southeast Asia.
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Golden jackal, called common jackal, is a wolf-like canid that is native to Southeast Europe, Southwest Asia, South Asia, and regions of Southeast Asia.
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The ancestor of the golden jackal is believed to be the extinct Arno river dog that lived in southern Europe.
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Genetic studies indicate that the golden jackal expanded from India around 20,000 years ago, towards the end of the last Last Glacial Maximum.
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Golden jackal is abundant in valleys and beside rivers and their tributaries, canals, lakes, and seashores, but rare in foothills and low mountains.
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The absence of clearly identified golden jackal fossils in the Caucasus region and Transcaucasia, areas where the species currently resides, indicates that the species is a relatively recent arrival.
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The extant golden jackal lineage commenced expanding its population in India 37,000 years ago.
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Golden jackal was taxonomically subordinated to the genus Canis by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 publication Systema Naturae.
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Golden jackal is similar to the gray wolf but is distinguished by its smaller size, lighter weight, more elongated torso, less-prominent forehead, shorter legs and tail, and a muzzle that is narrower and more pointed.
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The golden jackal is a less specialized species than the gray wolf, and these skull features relate to the jackal's diet of small birds, rodents, small vertebrates, insects, carrion, fruit, and some vegetable matter.
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Occasionally, the golden jackal develops a horny growth on the skull referred to as a "jackal's horn", which usually measures 1.
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Golden jackal fills much the same ecological niche in Eurasia as the coyote does in North America; it is both a predator and a scavenger, and an omnivorous and opportunistic forager with a diet that varies according to its habitat and the season.
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In northeastern Italy, the Golden jackal is a carrier of the tick species Ixodes ricinus and Dermacentor reticulatus, and the smallest human fluke Metagonimus yokogawai that can be caught from ingesting infected raw fish.
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The Golden jackal is dispersing across Europe through rivers and valleys, bringing parasites into regions where these did not previously exist.
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In Buddhist tales, the Golden jackal is regarded as being cunning in a way similar to the fox in European tales.
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In Hinduism, the Golden jackal is portrayed as the familiar of several deities with the most common being Chamunda, the emaciated, devouring goddess of the cremation grounds.
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In Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories collected in The Jungle Book, the character Tabaqui is a Golden jackal despised by the Seeonee wolf pack due to his mock cordiality, his scavenging habits, and his subservience to Shere Khan the tiger.
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Golden jackal can be a harmful pest that attacks domestic animals such as turkeys, lambs, sheep, goats, domestic water buffalo calves, and valuable game species like newborn roe deer, hares, coypu, pheasants, francolins, grey partridges, bustards and waterfowl.
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Golden jackal used the jackal because he believed that it was the wild ancestor of the dog, that it had superior scent-detecting ability, and, because it was smaller with more endurance than the dog, it could be housed outdoors in the Russian climate.
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