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Had a great sighting of Side Striped Jackal just outside of P-kop

Mother --






And her young cub ..

Mom looks more Black-backed to me?

Elsa , very similar looking . The black-backed jackal has , slightly more pointy ears , does not have the white stripe on the sides but a more distinct black stripe - this was in the rain , the animal quite wet , and the white stripe less obvious .
Interesting , the tail on this one does not have the white tip , but a BB's tail is lighter brown and darkens towards a black tip .

Ja I think it is a side striped jackal - we have only seen them 3 times in Kruger - twice near Pretoriuskop in early morning (managed to get pics of both sightings but they were very skittish and ran off within 10 seconds of seeing them) and then on a night drive just outside Satara. Definitely one of my animals on my wish list to get a decent pic of!!

We were lucky enough to see SS Jackal twice on our last trip . These two were south of Shingwedzi on 12th October 2012 , and we saw another one on 20th October close to Orpen on our way out back home . Could not get pics , because he trotted off before I could get my camera out

Okie I also think that mother jackal is a BB Jackal if I look at the tip of the tail. The tip of the tail on a SSJ is white, while the tip of the BBJ tail is black. That is the reason for the Afrikaans name of Witwasjakkals.

I agree with you Johan , and I mentioned the lack of the white tip . However , a BB have a distinct BLACK stripe down its side , which this one lacks too . Look at a typical BB jackal here , seen at Kloppersfontein :

Okie, unfortunately I have to agree with Johan Viljoen and Elsa that you photographed a Black-backed Jackal. I took the photo below of a wet BBJ in Kgalagadi a couple of years ago where there is no chance of getting a SSJ. When wet, the black stripe you mentioned sort of disappears below the grey hair from higher up in the sides. As Johan noted the Side-striped Jackal will always have a white tip to its tail.


Clicking on the image will open the original hi-res image.

Agreed that is why is is called a 'Witkwasjakkals' in Afrikaans.

Well , very interesting Thank you all

Definitely not the best of pics, light was terrible, but then again I have always struggled to get a half decent pic of a Side Striped Jackal, spotted this one on a very cloudy gloomy day, in fact there were 2 of them, not far from Skukuza on the S21.