Home – Africa
Habitat – varied, from open grassland to scrub forest, desert, and mountainous regions
Niche – social pack hunter
Favorite Food – gazelle
Length – up to 4 feet, nose to tail tip
Weight – up to 80 pounds
Status – Endangered
Threats – habitat destruction, hunting, disease
African wild dogs are pack hunters, using cunning and strength in numbers to take down large prey like wildebeest on the open grasslands of East Africa. Although they are smaller than gray wolves, another well-known pack hunter, they are perhaps the most social dogs on earth, and use their developed behaviors to take down prey faster and larger than themselves. The packs average about 7 or 8 individuals, but some can grow as large as 20. Because of the size of the packs and their wide movement, African wild dogs hunt at least once a day to snare enough food.
Few predators are as formidable as a pack of African wild dogs. Individuals can run at sustained speeds of over 30 miles per hour for up to 3 miles without tiring. Their endurance is matched with an uncanny ability to execute intricate plans of attack, especially to catch animals that evade lead dogs. Usually the packs will attack smaller mammals like gazelles, but occasionally will take on large animals like zebra and wildebeest. When attacking the latter, the dogs will charge a herd in an attempt to separate the weak or sick individuals. Moving in, they will clamp down on the prey’s tail and lip, while other members of the pack bite at its underside to bring it down.
Like gray wolves, African wild dogs exhibit a strict hierarchy within the pack, with a dominant male and female seated at the top. However, these dogs are different in that there are twice as many males as females and all the males are related to each other in a pack. The dominant male gets mating rights and mating usually only occurs between him and the dominant female. Simultaneous births of litters do occur and when they do, they threaten the bonds of the pack. During these situations, fights break out and females battle each other for the right to raise the next generation, which often results in the youngsters being torn to pieces in the fight. Unlike other social dogs in the wild, the aggression with African wild dogs is usually confined to the females of the pack rather than the males.
After decades of persecution, habitat loss, and disease, the remaining populations of African wild dogs are scattered and thin. There are now fewer than 10,000 African wild dogs left in their natural habitat. Aside from their considerable natural adaptability, the one hope remaining for these amazing mammals is a strong conservation effort.
Home – Northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula
Habitat – Desert
Niche – small carnivore
Favorite Food – lizards
Length – up to 28 inches, nose to tail tip
Weight – up to 3 pounds
Status – Unconfirmed
Threats – trapping for fur and for pet trade
The Sahara desert is a land of murderous extremes. Daytime temperatures can spike to 120 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and below freezing in the dead of night. A cracked landscape of barren rocks, rolling dunes of sand, and very sparse vegetation, the Sahara is not a place where life can have an easy go of it. Most mammals cannot survive in deserts because of the harsh conditions and unavailability of water, but one little mammal has bucked the trend for millenia across the sandy wastes.
The fennec fox is the world’s smallest fox. A full grown adult only weighs in at three pounds, much lighter than a house cat. It inhabits the sandy regions of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and is well-adapted to life in the desert. It has fur on the soles of its feet that serves as a buffer between the fox’s body and the burning hot sand of the Sahara, and its giant ears are packed with blood vessels that help to radiate heat away from the body to keep cool. Its size is also an advantage, allowing it to fit into tight spaces and survive on less food and water than larger mammals need.
The fennec fox is also nocturnal, retreating from the sun’s menacing rays during the day into underground burrows until daylight wanes and the temperature dips to a level more suitable for hunting. As the moon rises over the desert, the fennec fox will leave the safety of its den to hunt the sands and rocky crevices for small animals like lizards and insects. It obtains nearly all of its water from the prey that it consumes, so this little fox can live in extremely arid environments where larger animals would most certainly perish.
Most foxes are solitary, but the fennec foxes will often gather in groups of up to 10 individuals. Each member of the group digs a den several yards long into the ground to rear its young and escape larger predators. Females give birth to litters of between 2 and 5 pups and will remain with them in the den for about three months. Fennec foxes reach maturity quickly, becoming fully grown in less than a year, which is yet another adaptation for surviving in a harsh land.
Despite its hardiness, the fennec fox is becoming increasingly rare, especially across the Arabian peninsula, where hunting for its pelts and trapping the young for pets have cut its numbers. There is still much to learn about this tiny dog of the desert. Hopefully it will be around long enough to answer some of the many riddles about its existence.
