Talk:African wild dog

Name Change

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus to move the page from African Wild Dog to African Hunting Dog, per the discussion below. Additionally, I have merged African Wild Dog name controversy into this article; that isn't in any way binding, and can be further discussed here if necessary. Dekimasuよ! 12:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

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I have heard from several sources that the prefered name is now African hunting dog. I think this is an attempt to improve their public image and also to avoid possible confussion with feral domestic dogs. Would there be any objections to a name change for the article? Steve Dufour 15:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I have nominated it for a move. Please check out this search. Both Encyclopedia Britannica and Encarta call them African hunting dogs. Steve Dufour 01:39, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - The common name is "african wild dog" (google dual confirms: african wild dog - 121,000; african hunting dog - 27,800). --Yath 03:51, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

You may be right and the name should stay for now. However in the future it seems that they will be called hunting dogs. Please consider the quality as well as the quantity of the references. Many of the newest and those of conservation groups working with the dogs themselves are getting away from "Wild Dog". Steve Dufour 04:09, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Here is an article which explains the problems with "Wild Dog", although they advocate "Painted Dog" [1]. Steve Dufour 16:03, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. Perhaps this is the name preferred by conservation groups, but Wikipedia is not the place to attempt to improve their public image, however laudable this may be. Other encyclopedias are relevant but not the last word, as Britannica and Encarta (especially) have different naming conventions to ours. Andrewa 03:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. I see that WP will probably not change this article's name. I have started an article about the controversy which I hope will be interesting to people concerned or interested in these animals: African Wild Dog name controversy Steve Dufour 15:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• comment - I reserve my opinion until I consult Mammal Species of the World (3rd ed., 2005) which is the most official source for common names, among other things. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:21, 14 August 2007 (UTC)oppose - MSW3 says African Wild Dog. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:21, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Relatedness to dogs

Painted "dogs" are less closely related to domesticated dogs than grey wolves, coyotes or jackels. I can't find a date of how long ago they diverged or any good references though. But it should be mentioned in the article that they are not "dogs" any more than a jackal is. —Pengo 23:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The Raccoon dog is even less closely related to the domestic dog, which is a subspecies of the grey wolf. The one genus Canis contains "dogs", "wolves", "coyotes", and "jackals"; all of which can interbreed with each other. If logic was being followed they would all be called wolves or dogs or whatever you like. BTW the raccoon dog is very cute. Steve Dufour 01:27, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The genus Lycaon did probably branch from Canis some three million years ago, according to R. Conniff (1999) "Africa’s wild dogs." National Geographic 5:36-63. --83.108.104.71 09:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Correct Name

I grew up in Zimbabwe and it is always called the Hunting Dog there and elsewhere in Southern Africa. The name wild dog is usually used by visitors and tourists who are not normally familiar with it. I only once ever saw an individual as they have become much rarer over the last 25 years and difficult to find. I think the name of the article should be Hunting Dog - it is not a wild dog as that is the name of a dog that has no owner and is a possible carrier of rabies in Africa.--AssegaiAli 16:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

It is a wild species, and a member of the family Canidae, that is, dogs. "Wild dog" does not imply that it is domesticated. "Feral" would imply that it or its ancestors were domesticated, and that the animal doesn't belong there--the word "wild" does not carry the same connotations except for those individuals who don't have their terminology straight. If you don't like the name, there are several alternatives, "painted wolf", etc. But this is just nitpicking--there is no reason to change the animal's name, there is nothing wrong with it. Even if there were, Wikipedia is simply an encyclopedia, changing the name here would not change the fact that it is still called a wild dog virtually everywhere else--it would just make it more difficult for people to find information on it. 75.211.84.6 (talk) 00:33, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Why don't they just call it "lycaon"? 79.2.247.239 (talk) 07:52, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Weight

The weight range mentioned here is dubious. The source/reference mentioned for the weight of this species actually talks about Spotted Hyenas and not about the Hunting Dogs!

A spotted hyena can weigh much more than 36 kg.--Altaileopard (talk) 15:41, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

BBC ref I found gives same figures as currently in article - you're right though the citation goes to irrelevant page - I'll point to BBC page instead. Book I have here says 20-32kg which is inside same range so seems likely to be correct. -Hunting dog (talk) 21:37, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Gestation

The article currently gives the length of time between litters, which is quite interesting, but not the length of gestation. Is the latter known? Could it be added? Cheers, Lindsay 20:50, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Various ref's say aprox 2 months - BBC site here [2] gives 69-72 days - "The New Encyclopedia of Animals" which I've got in paper form says 70 -73 days. In terms of what can be added to article I'd try to work in 'aprox. 70 days' citing those last two, unless anyone else can find better info/ref. -Hunting dog (talk) 21:29, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Subspecies

I know there are ref's to the fact that the sub-species theoretically exist in the Lycaon genus but is there actually any information about them? I've only found references generally to 'Lycaon Pictus', I haven't found any info on the sub-species so far.. -Hunting dog (talk) 21:56, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Monarchy

According to Martin Clunes a Man and his Dog, Wild Dogs are the only other animal to have hereditary rule, in that when the dominant male dies his first son will automatically take his place.For this reason they couldn't be domesticated by humans because a human would be unable to take over from another Wild dog, unlike with Wolves. Is this dumb founded or is this true (Woodnot 19:28, 24 November 2008

I doubt the statement is true, unless there are more trustworthy sources--sources that specialize on the species, for one thing--to back it up. There is a bit of logic to the idea, because a "firstborn" is naturally the oldest, and the oldest is most likely to be biggest, strongest, etc., traits which usually enable an animal to become dominant in a group. Even if the statement were true, I doubt it would have a very large impact on the possibility of their domestication--a human obviously would not "take over" a wild pack and expect the adult dogs to start obeying them like they were the alpha--they would steal and raise the pups, so the pups would basically grow up thinking that the humans were their parents. Whether the pups would "know" that the "firstborn" needed to become leader when the human alpha died is questionable, and like several behaviors seen in gray wolves, would probably have just been "bred out" to suit man's purposes. 70.216.128.101 (talk) 00:13, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

However, thanks to the kind donation of the Social structure section, Wild dogs do indeed practice a form of automatic, "semi" hereditary rule, but not exactly how Martin Clunes desacribed it. However, other animals practice herediatry rule, a male Bonobo and a female Baboon of at least two Baboon species automatically take the position of their mother, both species being matriarchal by the way. Going back to domestication, many wild animals get attracted to Human settlements by the copious amounts of litter Humans can produce, this would include Wolves. With such a wide selection of "vermin" some Humans would have wanted to get rid of them, but others may have started to experiment with domesticating them, a bit like the people who pick up stray cats from the street. These "experiments" could have been highly variable, and someone could have tried taking over a pack of wolves. Eventually, once people began to find uses for these various species, a process took place, which got more and more exaggerated as weapons technology progressed. The animals(such as wolves ect.) aggressive to humans got killed off, the ones who were scared of humans went back to the wild and continued as normal and the ones that "liked" humans stayed and got used for the various purposes i.e. power, warmth, food, clothing, "allies" etc. I hopeyou can make your own sumise from this. Woodnot 18:06 1 febuary 2009 —Preceding undated comment was added at 18:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC).

Crepuscular?

There is no mention in the article as to the African Wild Dog is most active. Is it crepuscular, diurnal, or something else? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.223.244.174 (talk) 17:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Copyright violation?

Sorry, I don't have time to dig into this issue right now, but there is suspicious content on this page. I haven't found a copyright-violated source, but... why are there apparent footnote-calls in the raw text. For example: "Adults typically weigh 17-36 kilograms (37-79 pounds).[3]" That "[3]" is not a wikipedia footnote but raw text. This implies it was copied from a different source where that 3 did in fact point to a footnote. There are several other footnotes like that. I would remove them; but figure I should leave them for people to figure this out. Thanks — Epastore (talk) 23:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It looks like an incomplete attempt at reversing vandalism. Material was removed from the article on January 29 and replaced with obscenities; the obscenities were removed, but the deleted material was not immediately added back in. Ten days later, a different editor added the material back in by copy-pasting from the page view instead of the source code. That meant the references and other formatting were not added back correctly. I will try to correct the problem. Baileypalblue (talk) 00:42, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Name

I do think serious consideration should be given to the term African hunting dog. It does appear that there is shift in preference towards African hunting dog, though African wild dog is still more common. Kobolola (talk) 02:15, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I think this common name discussion is pointles and a waste of time, because that is precisely why (in the scientific community) latin is used for a species name, to avoid any confussion about what species one is refering to/talking about. I think the only situation where discussion or rather a correction would be in order, is if the common name was way out of or even wrong, like calling a seal an otter or something like that.

This common name diversity happens with any species and in any country and even in the same state of a given country. Why? Because, precisely, they are 'common' names, invention of the local culture and subject to no homologating authority. All the more reason for this name diversity to happen at a worldwide level.

Bernie 189.129.200.44 (talk) 00:32, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Reason for male/female ratio questioned

"...In the African Wild Dog, the females compete for access to males that will help to rear their offspring. In a typical pack, males outnumber females by a factor of two to one, and only the dominant female is usually able to rear pups. This unusual situation may have evolved to ensure that packs do not over-extend themselves by attempting to rear too many litters at the same time.[7]..."

Should be more thoroughly explained, because one of the natural principal aims of any species is to multiply as much as possible, with limited resources and/or predators naturally keeping the population in check.

Bernie 189.129.200.44 (talk) 00:28, 13 May 2010 (UTC)