Wild dogs hunting at night

“It is widely an accepted belief that African wild dogs are crepuscular hunters, meaning they actively hunt during the dawn and dusk, as they largely depend on eyesight to pursue their prey. However, in recent years, wild dogs have been observed hunting at night using moonlight. I have personally noted this with southwestern Kalahari wild dogs (Mabuasehube-Kalahari Transfrontier National Park, Botswana) who almost exclusively hunt at night, even without moonlight. Could this be a shift in behaviour as a form of adaptation to environmental dictates?

In the era of rising temperatures due to climate change, many species shift their normal energy budgets to mitigate the impacts of rising temperatures on their activities. Perhaps another reason why our wild dogs in Limpopo-Lipadi find it imperative to prolong their hunting activities into the middle of the night could be that failure to make a kill is not an option when the alpha female is lactating at the den. Does the benefit of prolonging the hunt outweigh the risk of encountering lions and risking their lives, these are questions that wild dogs contend with in their daily lives as they trot the plains to survive another day.”

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