Bush dog
Forest Dog ( Speothos venaticus )
The bush dog ( Speothos venaticus ) is a South American wild dog with a stocky body and short legs. Outwardly, he is more like a raccoon than a dog.
Appearance
The bush dog is a small wild dog with a head-body length of 73-74 cm and a weight of 4-7 kg. It has an elongated body like a fox, a reminiscent of a raccoon head, small, round ears, large paws and a short tail (10 to 15 cm). The feet are webbed, facilitate walking on swampy ground. The coat is light to dark brown in color depending on the subspecies. At the brightest are the fur games on the neck and the ears, darkest on the legs. Jungenwald dogs are solid black.
Dissemination
The circulation area covers the northern half of South America east of the Andes. It ranges from Panama through Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil to Paraguay. Forest dogs are very rare in most parts of their range; only in Surinam they should occur frequently. The habitat is savannas, forest edges and gallery forests. Forest Dogs are bound to the water and always come before in the vicinity of rivers and lakes.
Behavior
A forest dog pack consists of up to ten animals, which are led by the Alpha pair. This pack hunt together. Here, a prey animal is often chased by some members of the pack in the direction of others. Often a river is the aim of hunting, where the forest dogs as good divers and swimmers are their prey often superior.
Forest dogs have a gestation period of 65-83 days, are born after three to six puppies. Exceptionally, a toss up to ten puppies include. The service life in captivity for up to ten years.
Forest dogs are diurnal and crepuscular and stay in burrows that were created by armadillos or anteaters. If these are not available, they also rest under logs and rocks.
The most common prey agoutis, capybaras and Pacas. In packs they do occasionally hunt adult tapirs. In addition, as prey animals armadillos, peccaries, Mazamas, coatis, opossums, Tapetis, rheas, Tinamous and a variety of small rodents were found. Besides the people are the jaguar and the puma natural enemies of forest dog.
System
There are three subspecies:
- Speothos venaticus panamensis: in Panama and northern Colombia and Venezuela
- Speothos venaticus venaticus: the most widespread subspecies lives in Central Brazil and in the adjacent regions of Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay and also in Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana
- Speothos venaticus wingei: in the southern Brazilian states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, in eastern Paraguay and Misiones.
Subspecies panamensis is smaller than the other two. The subspecies venaticus is darker in color than the other two.
Early taxonomists looked for similarities in the dentition of a relationship of forest dog with the Dhole and the African wild dog and united all in one subfamily Simocyoninae. Today you can see these similarities as a result of convergence. Based on current knowledge of the bush dog is the sister species of the mane wolf.