African Wild Dog Reproductive Capabilities Revisited: Successfully Raising Three Litters in Less than 14 Months is Possible

Abstract

African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) are obligate cooperative breeders and are generally considered mono-oestrus. As such, the birth of two litters within the same year rarely occurs, except for when pups from the initial litter are lost soon after birth. We report on a rare occurrence where a wild dog female (Vee) produced three litters of pups within a 13-month, 2-week period from March 2015 to June 2016, with surviving pups from each litter. Data on breeding females from wild dog packs in the study area (Savé Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe) were used to identify whether any predictor variables (e.g. environmental or pack dynamics) could have influenced this unusual occurrence. The period over which the high number of litters were born had high prey densities and there was some evidence that it was associated with lower temperatures. High impala (Aepyceros melampus) densities during 2015 was likely to have been advantageous for the packs' hunting behaviours, while lower temperatures have been shown to increase the percentage of the day that is cool enough for wild dogs to hunt. Pack size during this period was higher in the pack that produced multiple litters (by the same female) than for other packs in the study site, which supports existing evidence that larger packs are able to produce more pups. Our results suggest that either 1) under ideal environmental and social conditions African wild dog females are capable of producing multiple litters throughout the year or that 2) this occurrence was an anomaly unique to Vee and her physiology.