African wolf

The African wolf (Canis lupaster) is a canine native to North Africa, West Africa, the Sahel, northern East Africa, and the Horn of Africa. It is listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List. It is primarily a predator of invertebrates and mammals as large as gazelle fawns, though larger animals are sometimes taken. Its diet also includes animal carcasses, human refuse, and fruit. It is monogamous and territorial; offspring remain with the parents to assist in raising their parents' younger pups. The African wolf was previously classified as an African variant of the golden jackal, though a series of analyses on the species' mitochondrial DNA and nuclear genome in 2015 demonstrated that it is a distinct species more closely related to the gray wolf and coyote. 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. Further studies demonstrated that it is the descendant of a genetically admixed canid of 72% gray wolf and 28% Ethiopian wolf ancestry. It plays a prominent role in some African cultures; it was considered sacred in ancient Egypt, particularly in Lycopolis, where it was venerated as a god. In North African folklore, it is viewed as an untrustworthy animal whose body parts can be used for medicinal or ritualistic purposes, while it is held in high esteem in Senegal's Serer religion as being the first creature to be created by the god Roog.