THE WILD GUIDE Wild dog running…

Following on from last month’s article about the Spotted Hyaena (Crocuta crocuta), I thought I would deal this month with another amazing animal that has also been long misunderstood – the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus).

A distant cousin of the wolf and domestic dog, the wild dog split from the ancestor of other canids two to three million years ago. The Painted Wolf – the other name by. Dutch zoologist Coenraad Temminck first described the wild dog in 1820, errantly identifying it as a Hyaena (). Seven years later, the British anatomist and naturalist Joshua Brookes established that it was a member of the dog family, renaming it .