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“AGE THE JACKAL”
I am often asked how you actually age a jackal, well
it is really a simple process, and you don’t have to
be a dentist to do it!
To be able
to age a jackal will help in determining how many
predators you have on your property and if they are
adults etc. If you are successful to call in a male
and female and after that find a few spoor of others
and the months are January or February you can tell
what they are and if they are family of the two
adults you killed. So after finding more jackals
tracks and you call in and shoot one you can do a
test to see the age of the dog. It will tell you if
you have other adult jackal on your property if this
one you are about to check is older, or if it’s a
young dog, so by checking the ages of the dogs will
tell you who is on your property. REMEMBER those
days of a pair of jackal that have their own areas
are GONE!!!! This is no longer true at most places,
many farms have seen an outburst in jackal numbers,
one client of mine told me he saw 9 jackals in a
group attacking a cows calf, all of adult
persuasion.
Excuse my crude drawings but I am not much of an
artist
NOTE THE
ABOVE DRAWING; See the different terminology and
wording; Lateral lobes, Central developmental
lobes,upper Interiors and bottom Exteriors – take
note the differences.
Learn how to age a jackal, its fun!
Here is a
very easy way to tell the age of a dog,
you always begin ageing a jackal by the bottom jaw,
jackals have 6 top interior incisors (developmental
lobes) and 6 bottom exterior incisor developmental
lobe teeth, and have 2 canines on top and bottom
that are used to rip and grip flesh firmly and
puncture and damage the preys windpipes etc.
The
bottom developmental lobes (exterior incisors)
is your starting point, the two central
developmental lobes will be healthy and white after
1 year old and will be about 3mm long. The top
interiors of a healthy jackal that’s two years old
will be 4-5mm long. After 3-4 years the two central
exterior developmental lobes will wear down, then
after 5-6 years the one on left of them and right
(the lateral developmental lobes) will wear down
after 7-8 years and the ones on far left and right
will be worn down after 10 years.
Then the
top interiors,
the two central developmental lobes will wear down
after 11 years and the two lateral lobes will be
gone after 12-13 years. After 14-15 years the left
and right developmental exterior lobes will be gone.
By this time (if he is still alive) a jackal is
really old and will soon die.
What you can do is
to keep many of the jaws of dogs you kill, and you
will after a while note the differences.
For cats it is best explained that like us humans
that after we get older our teeth recede, this is
true with cats, you will notice that a cat with an
age of up to 4 years will have a gap between the
incisors and the fangs of up to 2-3mm away from
fangs but older cats will have a larger gap.
If you can
do what I did, I kept many jaws from various ages,
this gives you an idea as to teeth wear and tear and
also makes a nice conversation piece.
REMEMBER ; If you shoot a dog, look it over - if its
bitten on the face, under the jaw, on its sides ; -
that’s a sure sign it is indeed an intruder dog, if
you shoot a dog of over say 3 years old and if its
in good condition, chances are you killed the
resident local ALPHA male dog.
This is but a
general idea, here follows a series of skulls I have
just finished preparing for sale, I collect skulls
and furs to sell, these are a few nice clean ones.
After the
cleaning, glueing, spraying etc this is a good few
nice examples that follow, I enjoy making these up,
especially on rainy days, it keeps you busy!
The watch
gives you an idea as to the size of the skulls, man
that baboon is a big fanger!
YOUNG Baboon - I dont know the age, I am not good
with these.
...... YEAR OLD LYNX – YOU TELL ME
4 year old Groukat
..... year old Black Backed Jackal – WHAT SAY YOU?
.......
Very young Silver Jackal – AGE .................
Pied Crow – 75 years old – only joking! I dont know
– he was adult size when I shot him.
Look at this photo, you tell me what age this jackal
was. This was taken with a top class camera. If you
want a close in zoooooom, let me know, I will send
you a mail with one, and you can zoom right into his
mouth, and you can see everything thats going on
inside it. Then you can tell me his age.
To appreciate this photo you need to see it close up
and zoomed in, if you want to see it just ask, I
will mail it to you.
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