African golden wolf
| African golden wolf Temporal range: 1.3–0 Ma – Recent |
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| Canis anthus bea in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania | |
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Not evaluated (IUCN 3.1)
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Canidae |
| Genus: | Canis |
| Species: | C. anthus |
| Binomial name | |
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Canis anthus F. Cuvier, 1820 |
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The African golden wolf (Canis anthus), also known as the golden wolf, African wolf or thoa, is a canid native to north and northeastern Africa. The species is common in north-west and north-east Africa, occurring from Senegal to Egypt in the east, in a range including Morocco, Algeria, and Libya in the north to Nigeria, Chad and Tanzania in the south. It is a desert-adapted canid, and is common in plains and steppe areas, including ones lacking abundant water. In the Atlas Mountains, the species has been sighted in elevations as high as 1,800 metres. It is primarily a predator, targeting invertebrates and mammals as large as gazelle fawns, though larger animals are sometimes taken. Other foodstuffs include animal carcasses, human refuse, and fruit. The African wolf is a monogamous and territorial animal, whose social structure includes yearling offspring remaining with the family to assist in raising their parents' younger pups.
It was previously classified as an African variant of the Eurasian golden jackal, with at least one subspecies (Canis anthus lupaster) having been classified as a grey wolf. In 2015, a series of analyses on the species' and nuclear genome demonstrated that it was in fact distinct from both the golden jackal and the grey wolf, and more closely related to grey wolves and coyotes. It is nonetheless still close enough to the golden jackal to produce hybrid offspring, as indicated through genetic tests on jackals in Israel and a 19th-century captive crossbreeding experiment. As the IUCN's golden jackal page has not been updated since 2008, it has yet to recognise the distinctiveness of the African wolf; thus its conservation status has not been evaluated, and no reliable population estimates are available.
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