![5 Fascinating Facts About the Black-Backed Jackal](https://cloudfront.safaribookings.com/blog/2017/08/Black-backed-Jackal-BW_1200px.jpg)
5 Fascinating Facts About the Black-Backed Jackal
![](https://cloudfront.safaribookings.com/assets/experts/84x84/Mike_Unwin.jpg)
Mike is an award-winning wildlife writer, former editor of Travel Zambia magazine and author of the Bradt Guide to Southern African Wildlife.
Jackals have never really made the safari A-list. Derided in Kipling’s Jungle Book as ‘dish-lickers’, they seldom get the attention they deserve on a Big Five safari. Yet in many areas, these are the most abundant of the mammalian carnivores and the closer you look, the more compelling they become.
The black-backed jackal (Lupulella Mesomelas) – named for the dark, white-flecked ‘saddle’ on its back – is one of three species in Africa. It occurs in two separate populations: one in East Africa, from Ethiopia south to central Tanzania, and another in southern Africa, from the Cape north to Zimbabwe. Versatile and resourceful, it is equally at home in the Drakensberg Mountains and the Namib Desert.
5 Fascinating Facts:
![](https://cloudfront.safaribookings.com/assets/experts/84x84/Mike_Unwin.jpg)
Mike is an award-winning wildlife writer, former editor of Travel Zambia magazine and author of the Bradt Guide to Southern African Wildlife.
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