Dholes (Cuon alpinus)

[smedz]

So from he sounds of it, I think we can all agree that tigers do dominate Dholes even if those events happened, wouldn't you agree? But moving on to another Dhole related topic.

How in the world did Dholes manage to survive the Pleistocene? Back then, Dholes were also found in Europe and North America of all places. These continents were full of killers. Homotherium, Cave Hyenas, Cave Lions, Wolves in Europe, and American Lions, Homotherium, Smilodon, Arctodus, Dire Wolves, etc.
How did these small canids survive all this?

Well let's take a look at Dhole behaviour. We know that Dholes are mostly diurnal hunters, which helps them avoid tigers ( course this doesn't always work) so by hunting during the day, they could avoid some competitors. Another thing is the fact they lie in packs, which helps in dealing with leopards, and this also provides multiple sets of eyes, ears, and noses to detect danger, but being in packs wouldn't be too helpful when animals like he cave hyena and Homotherium where social and Arctodus were just way too big. But Dholes had another answer, habitat selection. By living in forests, they could avoid the fierce competition in the open plains, and since forest big cats are normally solitary, pack structure was and still is helpful. In fact, this method may be why we don't have accounts of Dholes interacting with Asiatic Lions. Dholes lived in the forests, Lions lived more in the grasslands and dry forests. But while this works with felines, it doesn't work with humans. Reply