The most successful pack hunters in Africa—they almost never miss!
You could get eaten alive by a pack of Cape hunting dogs—if you were, say, an antelope. These dogs (also called African hunting dogs) kill animals much larger than themselves by using spectacular teamwork. During the long chase usually required to bring down their prey, the dogs signal to each other with their white tail-tips. One dog finally grabs the exhausted animal's nose, another its tail, and the rest snap at its middle. Luckily, these wild dogs never hunt people.
A skeleton's design can give you clues about what its owner did for a living. The strong jaws and sharp, pointed teeth of these skeletons tell you that the animals killed and ate other animals. The long legs tell you that the animals could cover great distances. If you guess that these are the skeletons of powerful canine hunters, you're right.
When Cape hunting dogs are prowling the African savanna, the grazing animals need to be constantly on the lookout.
Which of these African carnivores do you think could really ruin a hunting dog's day?
Members of the dog, or canine, family exist in nearly every country. The ones shown here are not "man's best friend" but wild animals.
In hunting-dog packs, there's a strict hierarchy—that is, everyone knows who's got the power. When two dogs greet each other, each one signals that it recognizes the other's position in the pack. The leaders are the only ones who get to have pups, but any grown-up is happy to babysit.
One for all and all for one — A Cape hunting dog is not a very big animal. And it doesn't have claws or poison that it can use to wound its prey. To be well-fed carnivores on the African savanna, hunting dogs must live and hunt in packs.
Source: Microsoft Dangerous Creatures (1994) CD-ROM. Text liberated from original screen art; images & clip restored from disc. Original media is Microsoft/supplier copyright — placeholder pending swap to open-licensed assets. Credits & Acknowledgements →