Call me Kate.

With the game being six years old now, I find it disappointing in retrospect that her redesign focused more on resembling Serval than representing how unique these animals are.

Dholes are considered to be one of the oldest of the Canidea family, the split between Canis (true dogs, like wolves and coyotes) and Cuon happened about 5.2 -7.6 million years ago (Zhang and Cheng 2010). This early split from true dogs could help explain many of the physical difference between dholes and other canines. For one would be its teeth and jaw. Unlike other canids, dholes are short one molar on the top and the bottom of the jaw; most canines have a dentition of 3/3-1/1-4/4-3/3 (Cohen 1978) standing for incisors, canines, pre-molars and molars. Most canids have a fourth molar that the dhole lacks. It’s also noted that the lower carnassial M1, or the front molar, only has one cusp to it or one crest compared to the double crest seen in other canines (Cohen 1978).

These traits are thought to have evolved in dholes to support their hyper-carnivorous lifestyle. The streamlining of the teeth allow for dholes to be able to shear meat easier from prey, which allows them to eat it faster; this dentation change does limit them to a pure flesh diet unlike other canids with an omnivorous diet (Van Valkenburgh 1991). Other traits of a hyper-carnivore would be large pack size, large being more than 10 animals and a minimum successful pack size. For dholes, this has been seen at 7 pack members (Johnsingh 1982). The other direct requirement would be large litters, again larger than 10 pups, which would explain why the dhole has 12 to 14 mammea (Nowak 1999).

Other physical attributes that set the dhole apart from other canids would be its shorter muzzle and larger jaw muscles, more like the African wild dog and less like the wolf like the clad of canids (Acharya 2007).