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Golden Jackal[1]
Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[2]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Canidae
Genus:	Canis
Species:	C. aureus
Binomial name
Canis aureus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Golden Jackal range

The Golden jackal (Canis aureus) is a medium sized species of canid which inhabits north and north-eastern Africa, south-eastern Europe, Asia minor, the Middle East and south east Asia. It is classed by the IUCN as Least Concern, due to its widespread range in areas of optimum food and shelter.^[2] It is a highly adaptable species, being able to live in numerous different habitats, such as the African savannahs,^[3] the mountains of the Caucasus^[4] and the forests of India,^[5] and exploit different foodstuffs. It is the largest of the jackals, and the only species to occur outside Africa, with 13 different subspecies being recognised.^[1] Although often grouped with the other jackals (the black-backed Jackal, and the side-striped Jackal), genetic research indicates that the golden jackal is not closely related to them, but is within a "wolf" group which also includes the gray wolf and the coyote.^[6] The genetic evidence is consistent with the form of the skull, which also bears more similarities to those of the coyote and the gray wolf than to those of the other jackal species.^[7] The golden jackal played a central role in Ancient Egyptian religion, under the guise of the god Anubis, with some authors stating that it may have given rise to Egyptian hunting hounds.^[8]

Physical description

Skull of a golden jackal

Golden jackals are medium sized canids, and are considered the most typical representative of the genus.^[7] Golden jackals resemble wolves in general appearance, but are smaller, lighter, have proportionately shorter legs, have more elongated torsos and shorter tails. Their skulls resemble those of wolves and coyotes more than other jackal species,^[7] but are less massively built than those of wolves, and have narrower and more pointed muzzles. The projections of the skull are well developed, but weaker than the wolf's. The canine teeth are thinner than the wolf's, and the carnassials relatively weaker.^[4] In jackals, the anterior incisure of the nasal bones has a medial protrusion, unlike wolves. Also, the cingulum on the external edge of the first upper molar is broad and distinctly marked in jackals.^[9] The iris is light or dark brownish. Females have five pairs of teats.^[4] Golden jackals in India tend to have shorter ears than their North African cousins,^[5] which in turn tend to be larger and have longer carnassials than those living in the Middle East.^[10] Adults are 74-106 cm long, 38-50 cm high at the shoulder and weigh 7-15 kg.^[3] There is a 12% weight difference between the sexes.^[7]

The winter fur is generally of a dirty reddish-grey colour, with blackish or rusty red tips on the guard hairs. The facial region, save for the muzzle, is ocherous-rusty-reddish, with a black stripe present above each eye. The lips, cheeks, chin and throat are dirty white. The outsides of the limbs are ocherous-red, with the insides being of a light colour. The summer fur is sparser, coarser and shorter, with the same colour as the winter coat, only brighter and less darkly tinted.^[4] Jackals living in mountainous regions may have a greyer shade of fur than their lowland counterparts,^[7] and melanistic individuals have been reported.^[3] Jackals molt twice a year, in Spring and Autumn.^[4]

Golden jackals occasionally develop a horny growth on their heads called Nari-comboo, which was once considered a potent charm by the Sinhalese people, who believed that only pack leaders posessed them.^[11]

Behaviour

Reproduction and development

In the Trans-Caucasus, estrus begins in early February and during warm winters in late January. In Tadzhikistan and Uzbekistan, the rut extends to early March. Spermatogenesis in males occurs 10-12 days before the females enter estrus, and during this time, their testicles triple in weight. Estrus lasts for 3-4 days. Females failing to mate during this time will undergo a loss of receptivity which lasts for 6-8 days. Mating occurs during daylight, and concludes with a copulatory tie which lasts 20-45 minutes. The pair are monogamous, and will remain together until one of them dies. Males take part in the raising of their young, and will dig burrows them. The gestation period lasts 60-63 days.^[4]

In the Trans-Caucasus, cubs are usually born in late March and late April. Litters usually consist of 3-8 pups, which are born with shut eyelids and with soft fur which ranges in colour from light grey to dark brown. At the age of one month, their fur is shed and replaced with a new pelt of reddish colour with black speckles. The nursing period varies in length according to location: in the Caucasus, it lasts 50-70 days, while in Tadzhikistan, it can last 90 days. Cubs begin to eat meat at the age of 15-20 days, though they are rarely fed regurtitated food. Cubs have a fast growth rate: at the age of two days, they weigh 201-214 g, 560-726 g at one month, and 2700-3250 g at four months. Once the lactation period has concluded, the cubs are driven away by their mother.^[4] Offspring from a previous litter may stay with their parents to help them rear their next litter.^[12] Females become sexually mature at 11 months, while males become so after one year, though they only aquire an adult build after two years.^[3]

Diet and hunting

Carefully navigating a herd of Blue Wildebeest, Ngorongoro National Park, Tanzania

Golden jackals are oppurtunistic feeders, being both predators and scavengers, and will readily eat refuse and vegetation during certain seasons. In the former Soviet Union, jackals mainly hunt hares, small rodents, pheasants, partridges, ducks, coots, moorhens and passerines. They readily eat lizards, snakes, frogs, fish, molluscs and insects. During the winter period, they will kill many nutrias and waterfowl. During such times, jackals will surplus kill and cache what they do not eat. Jackals will feed on fruits such as pears, hawthorn, dogwood and the cones of Common Medlars. In Spring, they will dig out bulbs and the roots of wild sugar cane. In Summer, jackals drink regularly, and stick to water bodies. During times of drought, jackals will dig holes in dried channels and drink the water collected in the ground, as well as eating dead fish and birds descending to drink. Near human habitations, jackals will feed near slaughterhouses, landfills and cattle burial places. In Dagestan in the 1920s, jackals frequently ate near railway lines, feeding on food remains thrown out of trains by passengers.^[4] In Hungary, their most frequent prey are common voles and bank voles.^[13] In the Serengeti, golden jackals feed primarily on dung beetles, grasshoppers and crickets, though they will also eat gerbils, springhares, hares, ground birds and their eggs, lizards, snakes, frogs, fishes, bulbs, berries and fallen fruit. Although they readily follow alighting vultures, scavenging only constitutes 3-6% of their diet, due to competition with spotted hyenas. They tend to only scavenge when an animal dies or when a larger predator makes a kill within their home range. When they come across unfamiliar meat, jackals have been observed to rub the sides of their necks on the food and roll on their backs. During the wildebeest calving season, golden jackals will feed almost exclusively on their afterbirth. In India, they consume much fruit and vegetable matter such as mangoes, cashew, fishtail palm and jackfruits, as well as melons, cucumbers and maize.^[3]

Jackals rarely form small packs when hunting, though packs of 8-12 jackals consisting of more than one family have been observed in the summer periods of the Trans-Caucuses. When hunting singly, golden jackals will trot around an area occasionally stopping to sniff and listen. Once prey is located, lone jackals will conceal themselves, quickly approach then pounce. When hunting in pairs or packs, jackals run parallel and overtake their prey in unison. When hunting aquatic rodents or birds, they will run along both sides of narrow rivers or streams, driving their prey from one jackal to another.^[4][3] Success rates in hunting are greatly increased for jackals working in pairs: in East Africa, golden jackals hunting young Thompson's gazelles alone have a success rate of 16%, while those working in pairs or more have one of 67%. When attacking medium sized animals, golden jackals will tear at the victim's abdomen, rarely killing it outright.^[3]

Interspecific predatory relationships

Golden jackals tend to dominate smaller canid species. In Africa, golden jackals have been observed to kill the cubs of black-backed jackal.^[14] In Israel, red foxes are a commonly occurring predator, and although smaller than jackals, their dietary habits are identical, and are therefore in direct competition with one another. Foxes generally ignore jackal scents or tracks in their territories, though they will avoid close physical proximity with jackals themselves. Studies have shown that in areas where jackals became very abundant, the population size of foxes decreased significantly, apparently because of competitive exclusion.^[15] Conversely, jackals are shown to vacate areas inhabited by the larger wolves. Wolves are often actively intolerant of jackals in their established territories and have been known to approach jackal-calling stations at a quick trotting pace, presumably to chase off the competitors.^[16] Golden jackals often eat alongside African wild dogs, and will stand their ground if the dogs try to harass them.^[12]

Jackals will feed alongside spotted hyenas, though they will be chased if they approach too closely. Spotted hyenas will sometimes follow jackals during the gazelle fawning season, as jackals are effective at tracking and catching young animals. Hyenas do not take to eating jackal flesh readily: four hyenas were reported to take half an hour in eating one. Overall, the two animals typically ignore each other when there is no food or young at stake.^[17]

Vocalisations

The vocabulary of golden jackals is similair to that of dogs and Seitz (1959) noted seven different sounds. He remarked that different subspecies can be recognised by differences in their howls. Among African canids, golden jackals have the most dog-like vocalisations.^[3] The cry of a golden jackal consists of a long wailing howl which is repeated three or four times, each repetition in a note a little higher than the preceding, and then a succession of usually three quick yelps, also repeated two or three times. It was commonly rendered in English as "Dead Hindoo, where, where, where."^[5] When in the vicinity of tigers or leopards, jackals will emit an alarm call often rendered as "Pheal."^[5][11] Tamed jackals have been known to imitate the calls of their human captors.^[8] Jackals may howl for different reasons, such as to call other jackals or to seemingly announce changes in weather. They have been recorded to howl upon hearing church bells, sirens or the whistles of steam engines and boats. They typically howl at dawn, midday and the evening hours.^[4]

Range

In Africa, golden jackals are widespread in the North and North-eastern portions of the continent, being present from Senegal on Africa's west coast to Egypt in the East. This range includes Morocco, Algeria, and Libya in the north to Nigeria, Chad and Tanzania in the south. Golden jackals also occur in the Arabian Peninsula, and have a patchy distribution in Europe. In their European range, jackals are found in the Balkans, Hungary and south-western Ukraine. They are occasionally found in Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia and north-eastern Italy. To the east, their range includes Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, then east and south to Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand and parts of Indochina.^[2]

Europe

In Greece, golden jackals are the rarest of the three wild extant canids there, having disappeared from Central and Western Greece and is now limited to discontinuous, isolated population clusters in Peloponnese, Fokida, Samos island, Halkidiki and North-eastern Greece. Currently, the largest population cluster is located in Nestos, north-eastern Greece. Although listed as “vulnerable” in the Red Data Book for Greek Vertebrates, the species has neither officially declared as a game species nor as a protected one.^[18]

Golden jackals had disappeared from Hungary in the 1950's through hunting and habitat destruction, only to return in the late 70's, with the first breeding pairs being detected near the southern border in Transdanubia, then between the River Danube and River Tisza. Golden jackals have increased greatly in number year by year, with some estimates indicating that they now outnumber red foxes. The sighting of a jackal near the Austrian border in the summer of 2007 indicated that they had spread throughout the country.^[19][20]

Golden jackals first entered Italy in the early 1980s. By 1984, they had reached the Belluno province, and reproduced near Udine, though this pack was eliminated in 1987. A roadkilled jackal was sighted in Veneto in 1992, and their presence was discovered in Carso triestino. In these cases, the specimens were usually roaming male subadults, though a family was discovered in Agordino in 1994. The Italian branch of WWF estimates that jackal numbers in Italy may be underestimated.^[21]

Habitat

Golden jackals are typically lowland dwellers: in the Caucasus and Trans-Caucasus, they rarely ascend into mountains higher than 600 metres AMSL, though jackals in Borzhomi have been found in heights of 900-1050 metres AMSL and 840 metres AMSL in Armenia. The presence of golden jackals and their choice of habitat is determined largely by food abundance, the presence of water and the presence of thick brush where they can conceal themselves from both their prey and enemies. They are especially abundant in areas where there is no prolongued freezing period for water bodies and where it is likely for waterfowl to overwinter. Although not maximally adapted for cold areas, golden jackals can withstand temperatures as low as -25° or even -35°. During times of heavy snowfall, jackals can only travel through paths made by humans or large animals. They avoid waterless deserts, being found there only on their very edges. On the coasts of the Black and Caspian Seas, their favoured habitats are impassable thickets of spiny bushes with tunnels created by larger animals such as wild boar. They hunt along the shores or canals of water bodies. In Middle Asia and Kazakhstan they prefer tugai thickets, thickets in abandoned irrigated lands and reed floodlands. In areas with little dense vegetation, such as the Gissar and Fergana Valleys, jackals reside in low hillocks, where they take refuge in dry channels, caves and abandoned fox dens.^[4]

Subspecies

Though widespread, golden jackals do not display geographical variation to the same extent as wolves. Indian and North African jackals were once considered separate species, on account of differing coat colours, and the lengths of the ears being shorter in the Indian kind. Also, unlike differing wolf subspecies, which display no great differences in the form of the skull or the proportions of the teeth, such differences are apparent in Asiatic and North African forms of golden jackal.^[5] There are 13 subspecies of the golden jackal currently recognised:^[1]

Relationships with humans

Role in mythology and literature

Life sized Anubis statue from the Tomb of Tutankhamun (Cairo Museum)

Tabaqui (left) torments Father Wolf and his family, as illustrated in page 5 of the 1895 edition of The Two Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling

The Ancient Egyptian god of embalming, Anubis, was portrayed as a jackal-headed man, or as a jackal wearing ribbons and holding a flagellum, a symbol of protection, in the crook of its arm. Anubis was always shown as a black jackal or dog, even though real jackals are typically tan or a light brown. To the Egyptians, black was the color of regeneration, death, and the night. It was also the color that the body turned during mummification. The reason for Anubis' animal model being canine is based on what the ancient Egyptians themselves observed of the creature - dogs and jackals often haunted the edges of the desert, especially near the cemeteries where the dead were buried. In fact, it is thought that the Egyptians began the practice of making elaborate graves and tombs to protect the dead from desecration by jackals.

The Authorized King James Version of the Bible never mentions jackals, though this could be due to a translation error. The AVs of Isiah, Micah, Job and Malachi mentions "wild beasts" and "dragons" crying in desolate houses and palaces. The original Hebrew words used are lyim (howler) and tan respectively. According to biologist Michael Bright, tan is more likely referring to jackals than dragons, as the word is frequently used throughout the AV to describe a howling animal asosciated with desolation and abandoned habitations, which is consistent with the golden jackal's vast vocal repetoire and its occasional habit of living in abandoned buildings. Jeremiah makes frequent references to jackals by using the word shu'al, which can mean both jackal and fox. Although the AV translates the word as fox, the behaviour described is more consistent with jackals, as shown in the books of Lamentations and Psalms in which references are made to the shu'al's habit of eating corpses in battlefields.^[22] David W. Macdonald theorizes that due to the general scarcity and elusiveness of foxes in Israel, the author of the Book of Judges may have actually been describing the much more common golden jackals when narrating how Samson tied torches to the tails of 300 foxes to make them destroy the vineyards of the Philistines.^[23]

In Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories collected in The Jungle Book, the character Tabaqui is a jackal despised by the Sioni wolf pack, due to his mock cordiality, scavenging habits and his subservience to Shere Khan. He appears in the beginning of the book, visiting Mowgli's adoptive parents, Mother and Father Wolf, and they are clearly annoyed by his presence, since he announces that Shere Khan the tiger is hunting in their territory. Tabaqui is later killed by one of Mowgli's 'siblings', Grey Brother, who crushes his back.

Livestock, game and crop predation

Golden jackals can be harmful pests, and will attack domestic animals, including turkeys, lambs, sheep, goats and there is one record of a jackal attacking a newborn domestic water buffalo calf. They destroy many grapes, eating watermelons, muskmelons and nuts.^[4] In Greece, jackals tend not to be as damaging to livestock as wolves and red foxes are, though they can become a serious niusance to small sized stock when in high numbers.^[16] In southern Bulgaria, 1,053 attacks on small stock, mainly sheep and lambs, were recorded between 1982–87, along with some damages to newborn deer in game farms.^[16] In Israel, about 1.5%–1.9% of the calves born in the Golan Heights die due to predation, mainly by Golden Jackals. In both cases, the high predation rate is thought to be the consequence of a jackal population explosion due to the availability of food in illegal garbage dumps.^[24] Preventative measures to avoid depredation were also lacking in both cases. However, even without preventing measures, the highest damages by jackals from Bulgaria are minimal when compared to the domestic animal losses by wolves.^[16] Golden jackals are extremely harmful to furbearing rodents such as nutrias and muskrats. Nutrias can be completely extirpated in shallow water bodies, and during the winter of 1948-49 in the Amu Darya, muskrats constituted 12.3% of jackal faeces contents, and 71% of muskrat houses were destroyed by jackals, 16% of which froze and became unsuitable for muskrat occupation. Jackals also harm the muskrat industry by eating muskrats caught in traps or taking skins left out to dry.^[4]

Hunting

Golden jackal pelt

During the British Raj, British sportsmen in India would hunt jackals on horseback with hounds as a substitute for the fox hunting of their native England. Unlike foxes, golden jackals were documented to be ferociously protective of their pack mates, and could seriously injure dogs.^[25]

According to Dr. Jerdon, the Jackal is easily pulled down by greyhounds, but gives an excellent run with foxhounds. He adds that they are very tenacious of life, and "sham dead" so well as to deceive even experienced sportsmen. On one occasion a Jackal came to the aid of another individual possibly its mate which had been seized by greyhounds, attacking them furiously although Dr. Jerdon was close by on horseback.

—A monograph of the canidae by St. George Mivart, F.R.S, published by Alere Flammam. 1890

Jackals were not hunted often in this manner, as they were slower than foxes and could scarcely outrun greyhounds after 200 yards.^[26]

In the former Soviet Union, jackals are not actively hunted, and are usually captured incidentally during the hunting of other animals by means of traps or shooting during drives. In the Trans-Caucases, jackals are captured with large fishing hooks baited with meat, suspended 75-100 cm from the ground with wire. The jackals can only reach the meat by jumping, and are hooked by the lip or jaw.^[4]

The Greek Ministry of Agriculture annually organised shooting and poisoning campaigns against jackals up until 1981. An average of 1000 jackals were killed per year in these campagins,and a bounty was paid for each animal killed. The jackal was the first wild canid to be removed from Greece's vermin list in 1990 and was followed by the wolf and fox in 1993, though unlike the latter two species, jackals did not fully recolonise areas of their former range. Although jackals in Greece are rarely hunted intentionally, they are occasionally shot during the hunts of other animals such as wild boar.^[16]

Fur use

In Russia and other nations of the former Soviet Union, golden jackals are considered furbearers, albeit ones of low quality due to their sparse, coarse, monotonously coloured fur. Jackals are known to have been hunted for their fur in the 19th century: in the 1880s, 200 jackals were captured annually in Mervsk. In the Zakatal area of the Trans-Caucases, 300 jackals were captured in 1896. During that period, a total of 10,000 jackals had been taken within Russia, and were sent exclusively to the Nizhegorod fair. In the early 1930s, 20-25 thousand jackal skins were tanned annually in the Soviet Union, though the stocks were significantly underused, as over triple that amount could have been produced. Before 1949 and the onset of the Cold War, the majority of jackal skins were exported to the USA. Despite their geographical variations, jackal skins are not graded according to a fur standard, and are typically used in the manufacture of cheap collars, women's coats and fur coats.^[4]

Relationship to the dog

Hyrbidisation

A Sulimov Dog at work

Golden jackals are capable of reproducing with dogs. In The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication Charles Darwin wrote of a female hybrid from an English dog and jackal kept in the Zoological Gardens of London. The hybrid was sterile, but Darwin pointed out that this was an exceptional case, as there were numerous cases of jackal hybrids successfully reproducing.^[27] Robert Armitage Sterndale mentioned experimental jackal hybrids from British India in his Natural History of Mammals in India and Ceylon:

The writer in the India Sporting Review alluded to by me in writing of the wolf, mentions some experiments made in crossing dogs with jackals. "First cross, hybrid between a female jackal and Scotch terrier dog, or half jackal and half dog; second cross, between the hybrid jackal and terrier, or quarter jackal and three-quarters dog; third cross between the quarter jackal and terrier, or seven-eighths dog and one-eighth jackal. Of the five pups comprising the litter, of which the last was one, two were fawn-coloured and very like pariahs, while three had the precise livery of the jackal; noses sharp and pointed; ears large and erect; head and muzzle like the jackal. This cross, he remarks, appears to have gone back a generation, and to have resembled the jackal much more than their mother, whose appearance, with the exception of the very sharp muzzle, although she had so much jackal blood, was that of a sleek, well-fed pariah dog, colour yellow fawn, but her gait and gallop were precisely that of the jackal."^[11]

Scientists at Russia's DS Likhachev Scientific Research Institute for Cultural Heritage and Environmental Protection began a breeding project in 1975 in which they crossed golden jackals with huskies, in order to create an improved breed with the jackal's power of scent and the husky's resistance to cold. In recent years, Aeroflot has used quarter jackal hybrids, known as Sulimov Dogs, to sniff out explosives otherwise undetectable by machinery.^[28][29] Breeding experiments in Germany with poodles, jackals, and later on with the resulting dog-jackal hybrids showed that unlike wolfdogs, jackal-dogs show a decrease in fertility, significant communication problems as well as an increase of genetic diseases after three generations of interbreeding. This lead to the conclusion that dogs and jackals were not as closely related as once thought.^[30]

Alledged ancestor

Following the example of Charles Darwin, who speculated that dogs originated from multiple wild canid species, Konrad Lorenz advocated the view that most dogs, particularly central European breeds, originated from golden jackals, and that wolf blood only contributed in the creation of northern dog breeds. Lorenz theorised that wolf blood was added to an already existing jackal derived population only when humans began colonising Arctic zones in order to improve the hardiness of their animals in cold weather. He further pointed out that with the exception of northern dog breeds, which treat their human masters as pack leaders as wolves would do, the majority of dogs view their captors as parent animals, and display a submissive behaviour not usually found in northern breeds, a trait consistent with the golden jackal which does not rely heavily on pack members to procure food and survive. While capable of absolute obedience, the supposed jackal derived dogs are lacking in the deeper traits of loyalty and affection.^[31] He later rescinded this view upon taking into account the golden jackal's complicated repetoire of howling, which is absent in dogs and wolves.^[32]

Although the general consensus among modern scientists is that dogs originated from Asian wolves, there are still those who advocate the possibility of a partial jackal contribution. Dog specialist Dr Ian Dunbar pointed out how jackals have often been recorded to mate with pariah and dingo-like dogs and produce offspring, thus the possibility of jackals having influenced some breeds is a possibility. Author Michael Rice further argues that the golden jackal may have played a large part in the creation of Ancient Egyptian hunting hounds, pointing out how Pharaoh hounds do indeed have vocalisations similair to golden jackals, including the latter species' ability to almost mimic the calls of their human masters. Among other similairities, Pharaoh hounds tend to give ritual "noddings and groanings" to people they encounter for the first time, and tend to be monogamous, and only choose to mate with members of the same breed.^[8]

References

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