We were in Kidepo Valley NP in northern Uganda in July of this year and saw several jackals which were identified to us as side-striped jackals. I was kind of surprised because I'd seen a number of jackals previously and I'd never heard of this species (or at least did not recall it).
Genetic testing is revolutionizing wildlife classification and it seemed like I'd had an inkling of something going on with the jackal. So I'm going to do a quick review of jackals and related species.
The black-backed jackal, which I have seen previously, is now considered one of three species of jackal. It is the most lightly built jackal and is found in southern Africa and the eastern coast of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. There are two subspecies of black-backed jackal. One is the Cape jackal which I've seen in Etosha NP in Namibia (post on August 14, 2018) and the other is the East African jackal (post on September 11, 2014) which I've seen in Buffalo Springs NR and Masai Mara NR in Kenya and Serengeti NP in Tanzania.
The second species of jackal is the golden jackal, also called the common jackal. The golden jackal is not closely related to the black-backed jackal or side-striped jackal, but is more closely related to the wolf and coyote. I've seen one of the apparent six subspecies of golden jackal, the Sri Lankan jackal (post on March 20, 2019) which I saw in Uduwalawe NP and Minneryia NP in Sri Lanka. What alerted me to the change in classification, mentioned above, was the Serengeti Jackal (post on September 10, 2014) which I saw in the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania and was a subspecies of the golden jackal at the time. However, there are no longer any golden jackals in Africa, they are now only found in Europe and Asia. The animal I identified as a Serengeti jackal is now known as an East African wolf (see iNaturalist observation 54521323), also known as the Serengeti wolf, which is now considered a subspecies of the African wolf and not a jackal at all.
The third species of jackal is the side-striped jackal, the subject of this post. The side-striped jackal is slightly larger on average than the black-backed jackal. It is buff-gray, with a darker gray back than the underside, the tail is black with a gray, almost silver tip. Where it gets its name is from an indistinct white stripe on the flank, running from elbow to hip, which varies in boldness between individuals. There are seven subspecies of side-striped jackal, but the descriptions in Wikipedia are not defined well enough for me to even see what subspecies I saw.
Here are photos of the side-striped jackals we saw in Kidepo Valley NP:
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