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and what is believed to be dhole remains have been found at Riparo Fredian in northern Italy dated 10,800 years old. The European dhole may have survived up until the early Holocene in the Iberian Peninsula. This subspecies became extinct in Europe at the end of the late Würm period, but the species as a whole still inhabits a large area of Asia. europaeus) was modern-looking and the transformation of the lower molar into a single cusped, slicing tooth had been completed however, its size was comparable with that of a wolf. In the Late Pleistocene era the European dhole ( C. During the Early Middle Pleistocene there arose both Canis majori stehlini that was the size of a large wolf, and the early dhole Canis alpinus Pallas 1811 which first appeared at Hundsheim and Mosbach in Germany. In comparison, the modern species has greatly reduced molars and the cusps have developed into sharply trenchant points. The paleontologist Bjorn Kurten wrote in his 1968 book Pleistocene Mammals of Europe that the primitive dhole Canis majori Del Campana 1913 -the remains of which have been found in Villafranchian era Valdarno, Italy and in China-was almost indistinguishable from the genus Canis. The first study on the origins of the species was conducted by paleontologist Erich Thenius, who concluded in 1955 that the dhole was a post-Pleistocene descendant of a golden jackal-like ancestor. Hodgson later took note of the dhole's physical distinctiveness from the genus Canis and proposed the genus Cuon. Ĭanis primaevus was a name proposed by Brian Houghton Hodgson in 1833 who thought that the dhole was a primitive Canis form and the progenitor of the domestic dog. This northern Russian range reported by Pallas during the 18th and 19th centuries is "considerably north" of where this species occurs today.
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Illustration (1859) by Leopold von Schrenck, one of the first accurate depictions of the species, based on a single skin purchased in the village of Dshare on the Amur Ĭanis alpinus was the binomial name proposed by Peter Simon Pallas in 1811, who described its range as encompassing the upper levels of Udskoi Ostrog in Amurland, towards the eastern side and in the region of the upper Lena River, around the Yenisei River and occasionally crossing into China. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary theorises that it may have come from the Kannada: tōḷa ('wolf'). Richard Lydekker wrote nearly 80 years later that the word was not used by the natives living within the species' range. also English: dull German: toll), which are in fact from the Proto-Germanic * dwalaz 'foolish, stupid'.
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Two years later, Smith connected this word with Turkish: deli 'mad, crazy', and erroneously compared the Turkish word with Old Saxon: dol and Dutch: dol (cfr. In 1827, Charles Hamilton Smith claimed that it was derived from a language spoken in 'various parts of the East'. He stated that dhole was a common local name for the species. The possible earliest written use of the word in English occurred in 1808 by soldier Thomas Williamson, who encountered the animal in Ramghur district, India. Factors contributing to this decline include habitat loss, loss of prey, competition with other species, persecution due to livestock predation, and disease transfer from domestic dogs. It is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, as populations are decreasing and estimated to comprise fewer than 2,500 mature individuals.
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In tropical forests, the dhole competes with the tiger ( Panthera tigris) and the leopard ( Panthera pardus), targeting somewhat different prey species, but still with substantial dietary overlap. It is a diurnal pack hunter which preferentially targets large and medium-sized ungulates.
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Such clans usually consist of about 12 individuals, but groups of over 40 are known. The dhole is a highly social animal, living in large clans without rigid dominance hierarchies and containing multiple breeding females. During the Pleistocene, the dhole ranged throughout Asia, Europe and North America but became restricted to its historical range 12,000–18,000 years ago. 10 but distinct in several anatomical aspects: its skull is convex rather than concave in profile, it lacks a third lower molar and the upper molars sport only a single cusp as opposed to between two and four. It is genetically close to species within the genus Canis, : Fig. Other English names for the species include Asian wild dog, Asiatic wild dog, Indian wild dog, whistling dog, red dog, red wolf, and mountain wolf. The dhole ( Cuon alpinus) is a canid native to Central, South, East and Southeast Asia.
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