Jackals

I have a new school project chose a african animal and do a report on it here's what I got so far. A jackal is any of three (sometimes four) small to medium-sized members of the family Canidae, found in Africa, Asia and Southeastern Europe. (The name jackal is borrowed from Turkish Çakal which originates from Sanskrit: Srgālah ) Jackals fill a similar ecological niche to the Coyote in North America, that of scavengers and lesser predators. Their long legs and curved canine teeth are adapted for hunting small mammals, birds and reptiles. Blunt 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 animals that usually conceal themselves by day in brush or thickets and sally forth at dusk to hunt.
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.
Jackals are considered close to what all ancestral canids looked and behaved like. Despite their outward similarity, these species are not considered closely related to one another. The Simian Jackal is actually a wolf that is thought to have taken on the appearance of a large fox or jackal through convergent evolution (by adopting a similar diet of small rodents), and the other three 'true jackals' are believed to have split from each other 6 mya. The Golden Jackal is thought to have evolved in Asia whilst the other two species evolved in Africa.
The Ancient Egyptian god of embalming and the underworld, Anubis, was depicted as a man with a jackal's head. Today they are 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 settlementsany of several species of wolflike carnivores of the dog genus Canis, family Canidae, sharing with the hyena an exaggerated reputation for cowardice. Three species are usually recognized: the golden, or Asiatic, jackal (C. aureus), found from eastern Europe and northeast Africa to Southeast Asia, and the black-backed (C. mesomelas) and side-striped (C. adustus) jackals of southern and eastern Africa. Jackals grow to a length of about 85–95 cm (34–37 inches), including the 30–35-centimetre (12–14-inch) tail, and weigh about 7–11 kg (15–24 pounds). The golden jackal is yellowish; the black-backed jackal is rusty red with a black back; and the side-striped jackal is grayish with a white-tipped tail and an indistinct stripe on each side.
Jackals inhabit open country.They live alone, in pairs, or in packs and feed on whatever small animals, plant material, or carrion is available. They follow lions and other large cats in order to finish a carcass when the larger animal has eaten its fill. When hunting in packs, they are able to bring down prey as large as an antelope or sheep.
Like other members of the genus, jackals sing at evening; their cry is considered more dismaying to human ears than that of the hyena. They have an offensive odour caused by the secretion of a gland at the base of the tail. The young are born in burrows, the litters containing two to seven pups; gestation lasts 57 to 70 days. Like wolves and coyotes, jackals interbreed with domestic dogs. I don't need to right everthing out because we learned how to do bibliographs in school this is the interduction my project is on black backed jackals, (try saying that ten times fast) they look like this.As Uriah would say aaawwwww its so cute!