WolfQuest

I didn't see any topic on Jackals, and said "Why Not?"
So, there is now one!

A jackal is a member of any of three small to medium-sized species of the genus Canis, found in Africa, Asia, and southeastern Europe. Jackals fill a similar ecological niche to the coyote (sometimes called the American jackal[1]) in North America; both are omnivorous predators of small to medium-sized animals, as well as scavengers. Their long legs and curved canine teeth are adapted for hunting small mammals, birds and reptiles. Big feet and fused leg bones give them a long-distance runner's physique, capable of maintaining speeds of 16 km/h (9.9 mph) for extended periods of time. They are crepuscular, most active at dawn and dusk.
In jackal society the social unit is that of a monogamous pair which defends its territory from other pairs. These territories are defended by vigorously chasing intruding rivals and marking landmarks around the territory with urine and feces. The territory may be large enough to hold some young adults who stay with their parents until they establish their own territory. Jackals may occasionally assemble in small packs, for example to scavenge a carcass, but normally hunt alone or as a pair.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackal

Talk about Jackals!

Thanks for sharing all this information on Jackals, they're very interesting animals! I've been meaning to find out a little more about them, and this post helped a lot

Your welcome. I find Jackals interesting as well.

yes. i find jackals very interesting as well. lets see what facts i can find. *looks in book*
-feed on mostly small mammals, birds reptiles, invertibrates and ocassionly plant matter
-the 3 species are:
-side-striped jackal canis adustrus: western, central and south eastern africa
-golden jackal canis aureus: north africa, also in the middle east and south asia
-black or silver-backed jackal canis mesomelas: southern and eastern africa
source: DK wildlife atlas of africa, 2006 edition

My favorite are the golden jackals.

The word "jackal" is about as meaningless as "wolf", being applied to any species of canid without any thought to their genetic relationships.

Take golden jackals for instance. They are actually more closely related to wolves and coyotes than they are to black-backed and side-striped jackals, so technically, they are in fact a species of "wolf".

La Striata wrote: so technically, they are in fact a species of "wolf".

Or a species of coyote. I propose the common names: Golden Coyote or African Coyote.

And yeah, Black-backed and Side-stripped jackals really should be taken out of the genus Canis and put in their own genus since they're so distantly related from the rest of the members of Canis that they can't even interbreed and produce offspring. Every other canid in the genus Canis can interbreed freely and produce fertile offspring, hence the joke about Canis soupus as Canis doesn't apply to the Biological Species Concept which has baffled scientists.

If the two true jackals are going to be kept in Canis, they might as well just throw dholes, maned wolves, and african wild dogs in there too cause it seems the only reason the two true jackals are in there is because they look simliar to Canis.

caninesrock wrote:

La Striata wrote: so technically, they are in fact a species of "wolf".

Or a species of coyote. I propose the common names: Golden Coyote or African Coyote.

But... nobody would give a fig about them if they weren't called "wolves". I'm guessing that's why they renamed the once critically endangered cuberow "Ethiopian wolf" (which is further removed from true wolves than the golden jackal is, but that's covered in another thread...)

In any case, the word "jackal" was originally invented for the golden jackal in the first place. I propose renaming the BB and SS jackals, giving them some anglicised form of an indigenous name.

La Striata wrote: But... nobody would give a fig about them if they weren't called "wolves". I'm guessing that's why they renamed the once critically endangered cuberow "Ethiopian wolf" (which is further removed from true wolves than the golden jackal is, but that's covered in another thread...)

There are already too many species called "wolf" that aren't wolves though like Prairie Wolf/Brush Wolf(two other names for the coyote), Maned Wolf(which isn't even in the same genus as wolves), Tasmanian Wolves(another name for the thylacine, which wasn't even in the canine family. In fact, it wasn't even in the placental mammal family. It was a marsupial), and Aardwolf(which are actually a type of hyena),etc. Anyway, they are more closer to coyotes. They look and behave almost exactly like coyotes. But if they had to be called wolves, the name for the European Golden Jackal which is sometimes called the Reed Wolf could be applied to all of them. And according to wikipedia, at one point in time, they used to be called "Gold Wolves". As for the Ethiopian Wolf's name change, I thought that was because they discovered that it was actually more closely related to wolves than jackals and thus was possibly a true wolf. I know there's still some debate within the scientific community about this,but I thought the general concensus of much of the scientific community now is that it is a true wolf and not a jackal.

In any case, the word "jackal" was originally invented for the golden jackal in the first place. I propose renaming the BB and SS jackals, giving them some anglicised form of an indigenous name.

But that would require re-naming two species instead of just one. It would be easier and less confusing to people to re-name the Golden Jackal.