Wolf vs dog: what’s the difference between man’s best friend and its wild cousin?<\/a><\/li><\/ul>Recently, animals presumed to be jackals have been\u00a0observed\u00a0right at\u00a0the edge of their known\u00a0range, but because\u00a0jackals\u00a0are not easy to tell apart\u00a0from\u00a0some other canids, such as red\u00a0foxes and\u00a0grey wolves, no one was sure. <\/p>
This included\u00a0one animal from Lapland in Finland, who was killed in a fox trap,\u00a0one animal from\u00a0\u00c1lava\u00a0in the Iberian Peninsula, who was killed on the road, and\u00a0one animal from\u00a0Troms in northern\u00a0Norway, who was spotted on a camera trap and\u00a0helpfully,\u00a0left a faecal sample.<\/p>
Biological samples were collected\u00a0from all three animals, and their DNA was analysed.\u00a0Jouni Aspi from the University of Oulu and colleagues\u00a0confirmed that\u00a0they\u00a0were\u00a0all\u00a0three animals were\u00a0first generation migrant, pure\u00a0golden jackals, and\u00a0that they had\u00a0come a long way.\u00a0<\/p>
Crosschecking their genetics against a large reference dataset, they found that the Finnish jackal had travelled around 2,500 km from\u00a0a\u00a0population\u00a0based\u00a0in Austria, Hungary and Croatia.\u00a0The Spanish animal also probably came from this area, covering a distance of 1,650 km. Meanwhile,\u00a0the Norwegian individual\u00a0either travelled 1,400 km from the Baltic population or 3,400 km from the Caucasus.\u00a0<\/p>
\u201cPreviously, it was assumed that golden jackals arriving in Finland came from the established Baltic population, but this study shows that they can migrate from much further away, even thousands of kilometres,\u201d says Aspi.\u00a0<\/p>
When new populations are being established, numbers start small. With a further seven confirmed sightings of golden jackals in Finland (most recently in Ivalo in August), it\u2019s thought these three individuals\u00a0were at the vanguard of the expansion front.\u00a0<\/p>
Golden jackals are omnivores that\u00a0eat plants, birds, small mammals and carrion, but will supplement their diets with leftovers and livestock when they live closer to humans.\u00a0The study shows that golden jackals are capable of travelling astonishing distances in very different environments and establishing new packs and populations in extreme climates.\u00a0<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n
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