African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus): Facts, Packs and Hunting

What is an African wild dog?

The African wild dog is the only living species in the genus Lycaon. It belongs to the dog family, Canidae, together with wolves, jackals and foxes, but it is not a domestic dog gone wild, and it cannot interbreed with dogs or wolves. Why it is a separate branch of the family is explained in Are African wild dogs really dogs?.

It has many English names: African hunting dog, Cape hunting dog, painted dog and painted wolf. Conservation groups increasingly prefer “painted dog” or “painted wolf”, because “wild dog” makes some people think of feral dogs. The scientific name comes from the Greek for “wolf-like” and the Latin pictus, meaning “painted”.

Appearance: the painted coat

The coat is the African wild dog’s trademark. It is made of short, stiff bristle hairs with no soft underfur, and it is blotched with black, brown, tan, yellow and white in a pattern unique to each animal. The two sides of the same dog are often different. Researchers use these patterns to recognize individuals in the field, and the dogs themselves may recognize pack mates partly by sight from 50–100 m (160–330 ft) away.

A few features are shared by almost all wild dogs: a black muzzle, a dark line running up the forehead, very large rounded ears and a bushy tail that is usually white at the tip. The white tail tip may help pack members keep track of each other during a chase in long grass.

African wild dogs are long-legged and lean. Unlike domestic dogs and wolves, they have only four toes on each front foot, because they lack the dewclaw. The loss of this extra digit is thought to be an adaptation to fast, long-distance running.

Size and weight

African wild dogs stand 60–75 cm (24–30 in) at the shoulder and measure 71–112 cm (28–44 in) from nose to rump, plus a tail of 29–41 cm (11–16 in). Adults weigh 18–36 kg (40–79 lb). Dogs in East Africa tend to be lighter, at around 20–25 kg (44–55 lb), than those in southern Africa. Males and females look alike, with females only slightly smaller.

By weight, only the gray wolf and its close relatives are larger among living wild canids. Compared with a gray wolf, the painted wolf is lighter and leaner, with longer legs for its size and much bigger ears.

Habitat and range

The species once lived across most of sub-Saharan Africa, from desert edges to mountain tops, avoiding only dense lowland rainforest. Today it survives in scattered pockets. The strongholds are in southern and eastern Africa, including northern Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa’s Kruger National Park, Mozambique and southern Tanzania. Small populations persist in Kenya, and in West Africa the only potentially viable population is in Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba National Park.

Wild dogs prefer savanna, open woodland and semi-arid scrub, where they can see and chase prey. They have been recorded at high altitude, including in Ethiopia’s Bale Mountains and once near the summit of Kilimanjaro. They need enormous space: a single pack’s home range often covers several hundred to more than 1,500 km² (about 150–600 sq mi), far more than a lion pride of similar weight needs.

What do African wild dogs eat and how do they hunt?

African wild dogs are hypercarnivores, eating almost nothing but meat. Their main prey is medium-sized antelope. Impala are the staple in much of southern Africa, Thomson’s gazelle in parts of East Africa, and greater kudu, springbok, reedbuck and wildebeest calves elsewhere. They also take smaller animals such as duikers, hares and cane rats, and some packs specialize on larger prey, including adult zebras.

Packs usually hunt in the cool hours around dawn and dusk. They approach quietly, then run prey down in a chase that can reach about 66 km/h (41 mph) and last from a few minutes to an hour, often covering around 2 km (1.2 mi). Pack members take turns pressing the prey until it tires. Success rates are high compared with many large predators, though published figures vary a great deal between studies. The full picture is in How do African wild dogs hunt?.

A pack eats fast, because spotted hyenas and lions often try to steal the kill. Each dog eats roughly 1.2–5.9 kg (2.6–13 lb) of meat a day.

Pack life and the “sneeze vote”

African wild dogs are among the most social of all carnivores. A pack usually contains a dominant breeding pair plus their adult offspring and other adults, typically 4–9 adults, though packs of more than 20 adults are known and numbers swell when pups are born. Pack members greet each other with excited twittering, licking and play, and solitary life is very rare.

The species reverses the usual mammal pattern of who leaves home. Young males tend to stay in the pack they were born into, while young females leave and join other packs. As a result, many packs have more adult males than females.

Pack members also care for each other. Adults regurgitate meat not only for pups but also for adults that stayed at the den or are sick or injured, which is unusual among predators.

Decisions can be shared too. A 2017 study in Botswana’s Okavango Delta found that before setting off to hunt, the dogs gather in a noisy rally and sneeze. The more dogs sneeze, the more likely the pack is to leave. If the dominant pair start, only about three sneezes may be needed, but when lower-ranking dogs start, roughly ten sneezes are needed, a bit like a vote with a sliding threshold.

Reproduction and pups

In most packs only the dominant female breeds, and she may even kill the pups of a subordinate female. Southern African packs usually mate in the April–July period, while East African packs have no fixed season. Pregnancy lasts about 69–73 days. Litters are the largest of any canid, typically 6–16 pups and around 10 on average.

The mother gives birth in a den, often an old aardvark burrow. For the first weeks she stays near the den while the rest of the pack hunts. From about three to four weeks old, the pups start eating meat that adults regurgitate for them, and at kills they are allowed to eat first, even before the dominant pair. At about 8–10 weeks the pack leaves the den area and the pups follow the hunts. This shared care is a major reason large packs raise more pups than small ones.

Lifespan, predators and competitors

African wild dogs can live to about 10–11 years in the wild, though many die much younger. Lions are the biggest natural cause of death: they kill both adults and pups, usually without eating them, as rivals rather than prey. Where lions are common, wild dog numbers are usually low.

Spotted hyenas are the main thieves. They follow wild dog packs and steal kills, and in places they also kill dogs. Because wild dogs spend so much energy running prey down, losing many kills can push a pack into serious trouble. Pups left unguarded at the den may also be taken by large eagles.

Conservation status and threats

The African wild dog has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1990. The 2020 assessment estimated about 6,600 adults, including only around 1,400 mature breeding animals, split into 39 subpopulations; even the largest probably holds fewer than 250 mature animals. The population trend is decreasing, and the species has vanished from most of West and North Africa.

The main threats are habitat fragmentation, conflict with livestock farmers, deaths on roads and in snares set for other animals, and disease caught from domestic dogs, especially rabies and canine distemper. The details, and where the species is holding on, are in Are African wild dogs endangered?.

Myths and relationship with people

• Myth: African wild dogs are feral domestic dogs. Fact: they are a distinct wild species with their own genus, separated from wolves and domestic dogs for well over a million years.
• Myth: they are cruel, wasteful killers. Fact: they kill to eat, and fast eating is a defense against kill thieves. The book Innocent Killers by Hugo van Lawick and Jane Goodall helped change this old image.
• Myth: they are always successful hunters. Fact: success rates vary widely with prey, terrain and how “success” is measured. Some studies record most chases ending in a kill, others far fewer.

Wild dogs were once shot as vermin in many countries. Today they are a highlight of safaris in Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa, and tourism around their dens helps pay for their protection. Painted wolves also appear in ancient Egyptian art and in the stories of southern Africa’s San people, who saw them as the ultimate hunters.