African Wild Dog Skull measures 7.4 inches. African Wild Dog Skull is museum quality polyurethane cast. 2-part skull (separate cranium and jaw). Made in USA.
The African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), also known as the painted dog or Cape hunting dog, is a wild canine native to sub-Saharan Africa.
It is the largest wild canine in Africa, and the only extant member of the genus Lycaon, which is distinguished from Canis by dentition highly specialised for a hypercarnivorous diet, and by a lack of dewclaws.
It’s estimated that there are around 6,600 adults (including 1,400 mature individuals) living in 39 subpopulations that are all threatened by habitat fragmentation, human persecution, and outbreaks of disease.
As the largest subpopulation probably comprises fewer than 250 individuals, the African wild dog has been listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1990.
The species is a specialised diurnal hunter of ungulates, which it captures by using its stamina and cooperative hunting to exhaust them.
Its natural competitors are lions and spotted hyenas: the former will kill the dogs where possible, whilst the latter are frequent kleptoparasites.
Like other canids, they regurgitates food for its young, but also extends this action to adults, as a central part of the pack’s social unit. The young have the privilege to feed first on carcasses.
