The Painted Wolf (or African Wild Dog) is Africa’s most endangered carnivore.
This particular female is quite remarkable, not just for her striking beauty. She is the last remaining member of her pack, the rest killed by lions. She lives on water-bound region of the delta teeming with lions (I saw two different lion prides near by). So it is very unusual that she has survived for 2.5 years so far as the last of her species.
She has done something very unusual. Normally jackals, wild dog and hyenas are fierce enemies. But this wild dog has adopted a pack of jackals. She hunts for them, regurgitates food for their young and sleeps among them. She is shifting their eating patterns to nocturnal hunting and larger prey, like impala.
When the jackals pair up for mating pairs, it appears that one of male jackals has chosen her, despite the obvious size difference. (see below)
Hyenas have grown up having been hunted by wild dog. This wild dog ambassador has befriended one particular male hyena. When then meet, they touch nose to nose, and he tried to mate with her once.
At one point, she was leading a huge pack of hyenas and jackals in a hunt in the most unusual procession of natural enemies. At one giraffe kill, which none of them normally hunts, all three species could be seen feeding together. None of this is supposed to happen.
I call her the inter-species Gandhi of her kingdom. She may soon attract a documentary film crew.
And as we were departing, all three of them, she and her jackal and hyena boyfriends were sleeping together by the airstrip, as if to bid us farewell.
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