A pregnant, alert female African Wild Dog, Lycaon pictus, aka African Painted Hunting Dog, keeps a watchful eye on her surroundings in the Xakanaxa area of the Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana, southern Africa.
African Wild Dogs are not closely related to domestic dogs, and have several adaptations which help them when hunting, including a digit missing from their feet which aids their stride lenght and speed. The latter is also helped by their lean physique. Their teeth are very highly specialised for meat-eating. Although their colourful and distinctive coat in black, gold and white might seem very obvious, they are surprisingly well camouflaged in their core habitat.
Only the dominant pair in a pack breed. When the female is near to giving birth, she will establish a den, and although she will chase the other pack members away, the pack will hunt around the area of her chosen den. The pups are weaned at around five weeks old, from when they are fed on regurgitated food from all members of the pack. When the pups are around nine weeks old, the den is abandoned and the pups accompany the pack on hunting trips, though they eat first until they are about a year old.
Painted Hunting Dogs are listed as an endangered species. Their strongholds are in southern Africa, and also southern Tanzania and northern Mozambique, though smaller numbers are found in several African countries as far north as Niger and as far west as Senegal. Their numbers are decreasing, with the main pressures being habitat loss to farming and mining, killing by people and conflict with other predators such as lions and diseases such as canine distemper and rabies.
This photo is copyright © Liz Leyden, all rights reserved.
It is for sale as wall art or as various home or personal accessories at Pixels.com.
It is also available to purchase as a Rights-managed stock photo from Alamy.
