The Myanmar Gray Wild Dog is a small wolf recorded from various parts of Myanmar, such as near the Irrawadi River and from the wilderness of Pegu.
Description[]
It is described as having a short, dark gray coat, a black muzzle and rather short ears. The Burmese say there are two kinds of wild dog in Myanmar, one large and the other small. There is one record of a wild dog killed in the Hmaingdaing Reserve, which was unusually large and had thick grey fur. It was recognized as Wunbalwe by the Burmese. In accordance with various examinations of purported skins and skulls, the "species" is believed to be a subspecies of Canis lupus migrating from western parts of China. In 1998 scientists who have been studying the mammals of northern Burma provided records of smaller wolves, but they were said to be very rare animals.
This member of the dog family is nearly unknown to the Western world. It is rather dog-like in its outward appearance and was once (however fleetingly) thought to be the ancestor of the domesticated dog. In reality, some of the features of its skull and dentition are so different from those of Canis familiaris that it is unlikely that the Asiatic Wild Dog played any role in the evolution of the domestic dog. At present, it is accorded the status of an independent single-species genus.
In the early 19th Century, when the first reports and descriptions appeared in print, the Dhole was so common and numerous in India that it was considered vermin and was persecuted mercilessly. From 1912 to 1972, there was an Indian government program that offered a bounty for killed Dholes. (see ‘Dhole in Danger’) Today, the drastically reduced Dhole populations are legally protected everywhere.