More on the African Painted Dog

Ok. Big ears, patchy colored, big teeth: there's some resemblance...
Spotted Hyena (above) compared with Painted Dog (below)

In my recon around the painted dog exhibit, I've noticed that many people hurry through without reading the signs, point at the dogs and say "Look, hyenas!" and move on after maybe snapping a photo or two with Jr. in front of the dogs.

Is it really important for people to know which animal is what? Yes, it turns out that education is part of conservation! And we're talking about the differences between a critically endangered species (painted dogs) and one that's doing just fine (hyenas). NOTE: in Africa where these species share territory with each other and with humans, many people blame the dogs for killing livestock when most livestock losses are actually due to hyenas! More on that later...

I'm going to cover a few of the many ways these species differ. First of all, even though they might look similar at first glance, hyenas are more closely related to the cat family than canines. When you compare their coats between photos, you see the hyena's coat is tan with black spots, while the painted dogs have a patchy pattern (unique to each individual) of tan, white, black, and brown. Hyenas are also MUCH bigger! They stand about 3ft tall at the shoulder and weigh from 110-190 lbs, while the dogs are only about 2ft tall and weigh about as much as a healthy lab retriever (35-80 lbs). Hyenas have short, bushy tails. Dogs have longer tails, tipped in white.

Aside from physical differences, they also have very different social dynamics. Female hyenas are larger than males, and they lead the pack. Female dogs are smaller than males, and packs are led by an alpha (dominant) pair. The alpha dogs breed, and other pack members help care for the young, bringing food for mother and pups and watching the little rascals while mama gets a break once in a while. When prey is killed, the pack allows the youngest to eat first, then older members get a turn (if there's food left over). It's a very cooperative style of raising young. Hyenas are more competitive: every female of breeding age is liable to breed in a pack, and when a kill is made it's "every hyena for itself".

Painted dogs are great hunters (see previous post), so they only need to spend about 3 1/2 hours a day at it. But hyenas compete with the dogs for the same foods, and are not above thieving a hard-earned meal. Because of the dog's tight social bonds and "stand together" behavior, they are often successful at driving off hyenas that try to steal their food. However, if there are more than 4 hyenas trying to snatch their lunch, the odds are against the dogs.

As I mentioned earlier, painted dogs are critically endangered: there are fewer than 5,000 left in the wild and their habitat is being whittled down and divided up as people expand their activities. Groups like Painted Dog Conservation have been working with local landowners in Africa to dispel some of the myths around these animals, providing classroom education as well as camps for kids. Zoos assist in efforts to save endangered species by contributing resources to organizations like this, maintaining the genetic reservoir in captive animals, and spreading info to the public.

If you want to learn more about Painted Dogs, check out this really neat book: Running Wild: Dispelling the Myths of the African Wild Dog, by J. McNutt and L. Boggs