the 'Dhole'

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/7/01 5:23:23 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:

<< I really don't have time for all this, but an interested person might want
to consult Grzemek. >>

Better yet, consult "Grzimek's" (1990).

<<Dholes are not restrictd to any particular habitat within their range...
Habitat segregation that is not characteristic of two species in general is
fairly often found where there ranges overlap, and that appears to be what
has happened in India.>>

It's rather understood the other way around.  Natural habitat determines
range.  Dholes apparently frequent dense woodland or thick scrub and are
relatively rare elsewhere.  Sightings reported by the WCU over the last
twelve years do not mention any steppes regions.  In India and Indonesia, for
the most part, dholes frequent tropical and sub-tropical forests where wolves
are not expected to be found.

Venkataraman, A.B., Arumogum and Sukumar, R. The foraging ecology of the
dhole (Cuon alpinus) packs. Ethology 104:671-684. (1995)

Venkataraman, A. Do dholes (Cuon alpinus) live in packs in response to
competition with or predation by large cats? Current Science 11:934-36. (1995)

Karanth, K.U. and Sunquist, M.E., Prey selection by tiger, leopard and dhole
in tropical forests., J. Anim. Ecol. 64:439-450. (1995)

WCU re sightings north of India;
"Soviet Union: Very rare. Occasional sightings in the following regions:
southwestern Primorje; Priamurje; far southeast Russia; Amur river region;
and in Tian-Shan. Dramatic decline in records in Primode after 1920. No
reliable information is available on the situation at Tuva, Altai, or in
Kazakhstan in last 25 years....
China: Occurs very sparsely in the forested mountains of western Sichuan,
southern Gansu, eastern Qinghai and eastern Tibet (Schaller). "

As to the Indian wolf, it is clearly genetically, morphologically and
behaviourally a distinct subspecies (Canis lupus pallipes.) "DNA evidence for
Clade B... suggests that the ancestor of the wolf had arisen" in the Western
Hemisphere and migrated to the Eastern Hemisphere, "to the European Continent
through the Asian Continent," with the Indian or Iranian wolf evolving as a
relict population.  In fact, "the report on skeletal anatomy, the dingo, C.
familialis dingo, closely resembles the Indian wolf and the pariah dogs of
Southeast Asia. It is probable that the dingo is a direct descendant of dogs
that were originally domesticated from tamed Indian wolves (C. l. pallipes)
(Corbett, 1985)."

(Kaoru Tsuda, Yoshiaki Kikkawa, Hiromichi Yonekawa and Yuichi Tanabe,
Extensive interbreeding occurred among multiple matriarchal ancestors during
the domestication of dogs: Evidence from inter- and intraspecies
polymorphisms in the D-loop region of mitochondrial DNA between dogs and
wolves (1997))

Perhaps all this might have some impact linguistically.

S. Long