The Wild Dog Of India (Dhole Dog)...

The Dhole Dog...foxlike & mythic, is native to Central Asia...with packs found in satellites to the south & south easterly regions therein. Also known as the Asian Wild Dog, Indian Wild Dog & other sundry descriptives....tis the Asian Whistling Dog which might be most accurate These gorgeous beasts have a melodic chime, very bell-like & as cadenced as Big Ben...if you listen to my youtube selections below, you may find yourself as I did...waiting for a yodel...& then realising that the magnificent birdlike chime were the Dhole.

That they pee while doing a hand-stand really just endears them to me.

Interestingly, these relics of the mid-pleistocene lack a 3rd lower molar & their upper molars don't possess the wavy cusps we see on the teeth of our own best friends...you'll see from the slideshow that these stunning canids have the convex profile of primitive slicing dogs (& other faces...such as that of the Thylacine)...does this play in to the dentition of the Dhole? Hmmm.

Were they morphing from scavenging to predator?

I include this fascinating excerpt on the molar morphology of the Dhole taken from Thai National Park's website:

"The first study on the origins of the species was conducted by paleontologist Erich Thenius, who concluded that the dhole was a post-Pleistocene descendant of a golden jackal-like ancestor. The earliest known member of the genus Cuon is the Chinese C. majori of the Villafranchian period. It resembled Canis in its physical form more than the modern species, which has greatly reduced molars, whose cusps have developed into sharply trenchant points. By the Middle Pleistocene, C. majori had lost the last lower molar altogether. C. alpinus itself arose during the late Middle Pleistocene, by which point the transformation of the lower molar into a single cusped, slicing tooth had been completed. Late Middle Pleistocene dholes were virtually indistinguishable from their modern descendants, save for their greater size, which closely approached that of the grey wolf. The dhole became extinct in much of Europe during the late Würm period, though it may have survived up until the early Holocene in the Iberian Peninsula and at Riparo Fredian in northern Italy The fossil record indicates that the species also occurred in North America, with remains being found in Beringia and Mexico.

The dhole's distinctive morphology has been a source of much confusion in determining the species' systematic position among the canidae. George Simpson placed the dhole in the subfamily Simocyoninae alongside the African wild dog and the bush dog, on account of all three species' similar dentition. Subsequent authors, including Juliet Clutton-Brock, noted greater morphological similarities to canids of the genera Canis, Dusicyon and Alopex than to either Speothos or Lycaon, with any resemblance to the latter two being due to convergent evolution. Subsequent studies on the canid genome revealed that the dhole and African wild dog are closely related to members of the genus Canis, and that both are more closely related to grey wolves, coyotes, golden jackals and Ethiopian wolves than the more basal black-backed and side-striped jackals are. This closeness to Canis may have been confirmed in a menagerie in Madras where, according to zoologist Reginald Pocock, a dhole interbred with a golden jackal.

However, studies on dhole mtDNA and microsatellite genotype showed that there are no clear subspecific distinctions. Nevertheless, two major phylogeographic groupings were discovered in dholes of the Asian mainland, which likely diverged during a glaciation event. One population extends from South, Central, and North India (south of the Ganges) into Burma, and the other extends from India north of the Ganges into northeastern India, Burma, Thailand and the Malaysian Peninsula. The origin of dholes in Sumatra and Java is, as of 2005, unclear, as they show greater relatedness to dholes in India, Burma and China rather than with those in nearby Malaysia. In the absence of further data, the researchers involved in the study speculated that Javan and Sumatran dholes could have been introduced to the islands by humans."


The Dhole was first described in literature in 1794, by a Russian explorer who encountered them in his travels. He described them as regular pack hunters of the Apline Ibex & by 1811, they'd had been given the taxonomy: Cuon alpinus.

The etymology of "Dhole" is rather vague. Firstly, they are not "D-hole" (something one might call their D-named sibling....) but rather "Doll". It was in 1808 that a soldier named Thomas Williamson first referenced the Dhole after encountering one in the Ramghur district of India where he was commissioned. He stated "Dhole" was the common name used by the natives when referencing the curious red creatures. We do know that Dhole has been erroneously attributed to the Turkish "Dwalaz" ( which is proto-Germanic for: "foolish"..."stupid"....). It has been verified that "Dwalaz"  was not a word spoken by natives in the region & era...so...we may never know where "Dhole" originated....

Other names for Cuon alpinus are based upon the area from which the Dhole resides...such as: In Assam she is called " Kuang-kukur"; In Bhutan " Phara"; In Bengal "Bon-kutta"...etc...


Now listed as endangered, with approximately 2500 adults in existence...what say you of these wondrous creatures?

Click here for a Dhole genome study...