Dhole
An Endangered Animal of the Middle East
Description
The dhole is a mammal with a red coat and white underparts and black or brown legs and tails. Adult females can be up to twelve to sixteen kilograms. Adult males can be up to fourteen to eighteen kilograms. Their body length can be up to one hundred centimeters. Up to their shoulder they can be up to forty-two to fifty-five centimeters. Their way of communicating is whistling. Their unusual characteristic is their fondness of water.
Adaptations
The dhole has interesting features such as a total of forty-two teeth and eyes that are slightly hooded and have amber irises. They are best known for the strange way of communicating, whistling. Dholes are very social and cooperative with their other members of the pack. They can jump seven feet straight up in the air. They hunt by making a few members wait in ambush, while the others drive their prey to the ambush.
Habitat
The dhole lives in the Middle East and in Asia. They mainly live in the countries, China and India. The terrain they live in are dense mountains, alpine forests, and in scrub jungles. For their climate, they can live from freezing cold to a tropical climate. A cub's first twelve weeks of their life, they live in dens. When those cubs grow older they will live in little hollows and tussocks for lairs.
Food Chain
Dholes are omnivores, which are animals that eat vegetables and leaves and meat. Dholes hunt in packs of five to twenty members. They eat deer, wild sheep, goats, rabbits, insects, berries, and other small animals. Tigers might often eat a dhole, but a python would act as a true predator. Although, the python and the dhole rarely see each other. Baby dholes are vulnerable to very large hawks or eagles if unguarded. Jackals may possibly eat dholes, too. What dholes eat depends on where they live. For example, in Siberia, they hunt reindeer. In Tibet, they will kill sheep. Their main hunting areas are in the forest, dry land, and water.
More footage on the Indian Wild Dog (Dhole)
Critical Information
The main reasons why dholes are endangered is because of habitat loss, depletion of prey base, bothered by humans, and possibly by disease transfer from domestic and feral dogs. Those rude people are taking over the Dhole hunting areas. The WWF is an organization that protects endangered animals including the dhole and etc. WWF stands for World Wildlife Fund. WWF focuses on protecting vital habitat which in turn will support prey species for predators such as the Dhole. The World Wildlife Fund works with communities and governments to establish and manage protected areas and wildlife sanctuaries. You can help by donating money to the WWF. Everybody is now donating from left to right, so should you.