Range and Habitat
The bush dog occurs in the forests and wet savannas of Central and South America, in the countries of Panama, Columbia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Guyana.
Physical Appearance
It is one of the most unusual looking dogs, as they look like weasels or otters. This is probably due to the fact that they spend a lot of time in and around the water. It has a thick, elongated body set on short legs. Its coloration is a reddish brown with a darker brown tail and often has a lighter patch under its throat. It has small round ears, a short tail, and a rounded skull with a short muzzle. Their feet are partially webbed. They have 40 teeth in the dental formula: 2(I3/3, C1/1, P4/4, M2/2). They have modified carnassial teeth with longer cutting edges than most other canids.
Reproduction and Life Cycle
What little is known about the social and sexual behavior of the bush dog comes from captive observation. They are diurnal, and spend the night sleeping in a den either dug by themselves or a hollow tree trunk. It appears that they are very social canids, living in groups of up to ten individuals. They maintain a hierarchy within the pack, and it is thought that the females practice sexual repression of the other females to prevent them from coming into estrus. The females typically have two heats a year, just like domestic dogs, but mating season can be aseasonal depending on the social situation. Females remain in estrus for an average of 4 days. It is unknown if the dogs form a tie like most other kinds of dogs do when they mate. They will dig their own dens, but will more commonly use those of armadillos. After a gestation period of two months, they give birth to 4-6 cubs in those dens. The cubs are weaned at 8 weeks old, and are sexually mature at about a year old. Males will help the females raise the young by bringing food back to the den. They have a high-pitched bark which is used to locate each other in the dense forests.
Subspecies
There are three recognized subspecies of bush dog: Speothos venaticus panamensis (Goldman, 1912) found in Panama; Speothos venaticus venaticus (Lund, 1842) found in Argentina, Bolivia, northern and central Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela; and Speothos venaticus wingei (Ihering, 1911), found in south-eastern Brazil.
Taxonomic Note
Their genus-species name is interesting, because though these names usually describe the animal in Greek or Latin, the description of this species' name is enigmatic. "Speos" means "cave" and "othos" means "straight or true", both in Greek. "Venaticus" is Latin for "the chase or hunt". So basically the name means "True cave-hunter". Perhaps their name was assigned because the species was first described from fossils collected in caves in Brazil.
There is much disagreement about the relationship of this dog withing the family Canidae. Some ally this species with the other South American canids, especially the genus Atelocynus, while others like to place it in its own subfamily, Simocyoninae, with the genera Lycaon and Cuon. Still others believe the bush dog diverged early from the other modern canids, based on evidence from mitochondrial DNA.
Print References
- Alderton, David. Foxes, Wolves and Wild Dogs of the World. Blandford Press: United Kingdom, 1998.
- Nowak, Ronald. Walker’s Carnivores of the World. The Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 2005.
Online References
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