Everything about Jackals totally explained
» This article is about the animal. For other meanings, see jackal (disambiguation).
A
jackal (from
Turkish çakal, via
Persian shaghal ultimately from
Sanskrit sṛgālaḥ ) is any of three (sometimes four) small to medium-sized members of the family
Canidae, found in
Africa,
Asia and Southeastern
Europe. Jackals fill a similar ecological niche to the
coyote in North America, that of
predators of small to medium-sized animals,
scavengers, and omnivores. Their long legs and curved
canine teeth are adapted for hunting small
mammals,
birds and
reptiles. Big feet and fused leg bones give them a long-distance runner's physique, capable of maintaining speeds of 16km/h (10mph) (just over 6 min/mile) for extended periods of time. They are nocturnal, most active at dawn and dusk.
In jackal society the social unit is that of a monogamous pair which defends its territory from other pairs. These territories are defended by vigorously chasing intruding rivals and marking landmarks around the territory with
urine and
feces. The territory may be large enough to hold some young adults who stay with their parents until they establish their own territory. Jackals may occasionally assemble in small packs, for example to scavenge a carcass, but normally hunt alone or as a pair.
Taxonomy and relationships
In
1816 in the third volume of
Lorenz Oken’s
Lehrbuch der Naturgeschichte, the author found sufficient similarities in the dentition of jackals and the North American coyotes to place these species into a new separate genus
Thos after the classical Greek word θώς. Oken’s idiosycratic nomenclatorial ways however, aroused the scorn of a number of zoological systematists. Nearly all the descriptive words used to justify the genus division were relative terms without a reference measure and that the argument didn't take into account the size differences between the species which can be considerable. Angel Cabrera, in his
1932 monograph on the mammals of Morocco, briefly touched upon the question whether or not the presence of a
cingulum on the upper
molars of the jackals and its corresponding absence in the rest of
Canis could justify a subdivision of the genus
Canis. In practice, he chose the undivided-genus alternative and referred to the jackals as
Canis.
Oken’s
Thos theory had little immediate impact on taxonomy and/or taxonomic nomenclature, though it was revived in
1914 by
Edmund Heller who embraced the new genus theory. Heller’s name and the designations he gave to various jackal species and subspecies live on, though the genus has been changed from
Thos to
Canis.
Modern research has clarified the relationships between the "jackal"
species. Despite their outward similarity, they're not all closely related to one another. The side-striped jackal and the black-backed jackal are close to each other, but separated from the other African and Eurasian wild dogs and wolves some six or seven
mya. The
golden jackal and
Ethiopian wolf are part of a group also including the
grey wolf, domestic
dog and
coyote.
Species:
Ancient use
The
Ancient Egyptian god of
embalming and the
underworld,
Anubis, was depicted as a man with a jackal's head. Today they're one of the more commonly seen animals on
safaris, and are found outside of
national parks and do well in human altered landscapes and even near and in human settlements.
Use in slang
All species of jackal are capable predators (all three hunt rodents and small mammals regularly, with the golden and black-backed species known to hunt poisonous snakes, large ground birds such as bustards, and mammals as large as young antelope). However, their popular image as scavengers has resulted in a negative public image.
The expression "jackalling"" is sometimes used to describe the work done by a subordinate to save the time of a superior. (For example, a junior lawyer may peruse large quantities of material on behalf of a barrister.) This came from the tradition that the jackal will sometimes lead a lion to its prey. In other languages, the same word is sometimes used to describe the behaviour of persons who try to scavenge scraps from the misfortunes of others; for example. by looting a village from which the inhabitants have fled because of a disaster.
In Nonviolent Communication, "jackal language" refers to communication that labels, judges, and criticizes.
Further Information
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