NO, 7 MAMMALS FROM EQUATORIAL AFRICA — HELLER 5 



THOS AUREUS BEA, new subspecies 



Southern Golden Jackal 



Type from the Loita Tlains, British East Africa ; adult female, 

 number 162904, U. S. Nat. Mus. ; collected by Edmund Eleller, July 

 4, 1909; original number, 200. 



Characters. — Thos aureus bea may be distinguished from the more 

 northern African races by its much smaller body size and lighter 

 coloration generally, the ears and legs being of a decidedly lighter 

 fulvous shade. Compared to variegatus, the Abyssinia race, the size 

 is much less, the difference in skull length being 25 millimeters less. 

 Typical aureus of India differs only racially from these North Africa 

 jackals which have usually been treated as a race of anthus originally 

 described from Senegal. In skull characters and coloration the 

 African resembles the Indian and Asiatic races of aureus so closely 

 that their relationship is better shown by placing them under the 

 Indian jackal as subspecific forms. The present form is the most 

 southern race and the only one to extend south of the equator. It 

 doubtless reaches its extreme southern limit in central German East 

 Africa but no specimens have yet been reported from that region. In 

 a general way this jackal coincides, in its geographical range, with 

 the striped hyena throughout Africa and Asia. 



The type is an adult female in fresh pelage, the back being heavily 

 lined or overlaid by black from the nape to the tip of the tail which 

 is wholly black and has the hair everywhere basally vinaceous.. The 

 underparts are whitish or pale buff, the hair being uniform to the 

 roots. The backs of the ears and the legs are bright ochraceous, 

 the forelegs having a black stripe in front over the knee similar to 

 the black stripe on adustus. Worn specimens often have the median 

 area of the back lacking the black hair tips but the sides still retaining 

 them, which produces a side-striped effect quite similar to the side- 

 striped effect of adustus. Young and immature specimens lack the 

 black lining of the back and are consequently much lighter colored 

 than the adults. 



The flesh measurements of the type were: head and body, 640 

 mm.; tail, 275; hindfoot, 140; ear from notch, 99. Skull: condylo- 

 incisive length, 140; greatest length, 150; zygomatic breadth, yy ; 

 interorbital breadth, 23.5; postorbital constriction, 26; nasals, 13.2 X 

 53 ; length of upper cheek teeth including canine, 65 ; length of upper 

 carnassial, 15.5 ; length of palate, 71 ; width of mesopterygoid fossa, 

 14; length of incisive foramina, 11. 



