Wolf (Canis lupus)

[Jimmy]

(12-07-2018, 06:15 PM)Sanju Wrote:

In the Negev Desert of Israel, in 1994, Vladimir Dinets - a tracker and zoologist - discovered tracks of a striped hyena, Hyaena hyaena, overlapping with those of either Arabian (Canis lupus arabs) or Indian (C. l. pallipes) wolves, both of which are subspecies of the grey wolf.

*This image is copyright of its original author

The Indian wolf, which may have been the subspecies in question

Further examination of the tracks indicated that the three wolves and the hyena were walking together, at the same time. This discovery was hugely surprising for Dinets, but his zoological colleagues - who knew little about conventional tracking - were unconvinced.

Four years later, in the same area as that of the tracks, the Israeli zoologist Benjamin Eligulashvili observed a pack of seven wolves traveling with a single striped hyena, who was right in the middle of the group. These discoveries indicate that the two species cooperate in order to hunt.

*This image is copyright of its original author

The striped hyena, Hyaena hyaena
Thinking about it further, it makes sense. The Negev Desert is an extremely hostile and arid environment, and the two species have their respective strengths - the striped hyenas have a superior sense of smell and bite force, while the wolves are better at hunting and tracking down large prey.

In this case, the wolves and hyenas depend on each other in order to survive and reproduce better than their non-cooperative counterparts, but they’re not interdependent to the degree that they couldn’t survive without each other.
https://qr.ae/TUtAKa
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160324-...ith-wolves

Nice article! This is something unusual, one animal benifitting from the presence of another animal has certainly happened eg artic fox following polar bear, brown bears benefiting from wolf packs and even Ethiopian wolf hunting in presence of troops of jelada baboons. While this is all the more interesting, similar kind of animal, possibly similar prey. A nice photo would have been great. imagine a scenario where a pack of arabian wolf teeming with a striped hyena to take on a large antelope! Reply