A lone wolf with a pack of wild dogs: first record of dhole-wolf association in Melghat Tiger Reserve of India

Abstract

Direct observations of interspecific interactions among large carnivores remain relatively uncommon in the wild, largely due to their elusive behaviour and low densities. This note reports an unusual instance of a lone Indian wolf Canis lupus pallipes associating with a pack of dholes Cuon alpinus on three separate occasions in Melghat Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra, India. The pack, consisting of two adult dholes and three pups, exhibited no signs of aggression or avoidance toward the male wolf, which was observed moving and resting in close proximity to the group. Such affiliative behaviour contrasts with typically antagonistic interactions reported between sympatric carnivores and suggests behavioural flexibility potentially shaped by factors such as habitat structure, prey distribution, availability of conspecifics, or shared space use along habitat edges. These observations add to the limited but growing evidence of context-dependent associations between social carnivores in India.