That, my friends, is death in motion. African wild dogs are insanely good hunters. About 80% of the time that they want to kill something, they do it. In some packs it’s 90%.
Do you understand how insane a hunting success rate that is? Lions have about a 25% success rate. Wolves, when hunting as a pack, have about a 20% success rate. Great White sharks are considered to have quite a high success rate at about 48%.
One of my very favorite creatures, Solo the African Wild Dog, lost her whole pack (she was pack leader) to either disease or poison, i forget. Researchers who had been studying her pack were very concerned that she wouldn’t be able to feed herself without her packmates to hunt with.
They soon discovered that she was at least as efficient alone. They reported that she would sleep, wake up, and within 30 minutes of waking up would have successfully hunted and killed a large animal like an antelope. As easy as a trip to the corner store.
I have to stop now, or I will tell you her whole story, which is amazing and sad and wonderful and surprising and sad.
But yeah, if that stalking group of african wild dogs up there looks dangerous, it’s because they are possibly the deadliest carnivores with four feet on the planet. Like literally, they might be. To find higher kill success rates you pretty much have to look at ocean creatures or insects or something, and even with the top contenders in those categories you’re probably looking at a tie. If it’s a land mammal, it’s almost certainly not killing anywhere near as competently as an African wild dog.
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