Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin (ISSN 0178 – 6288) . Number 20, December 1990, pp. 1-11. | Page 5

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arabs, that occur together in the southern Wadi Araba in areas with less than 50
mm. rain. Possibly this area was formerly inhabited only by Canis lupus arabs,
which are probably better adapted to extreme desert conditions. Increasing
human development of the area improved the conditions for wolves by
providing an easily available source of food at garbage dumps, and by
stimulating increase of wildlife near areas of irrigated agriculture. These
improved conditions may have enabled the penetration of Canis lupus pa1lipes
into this area, perhaps competing with Canis lupus arabs and supplanting it. If
this assumption is correct, Canis lupus arabs should disappear from this area in
the future. They are now much rarer than Canis lupus pallipes. It is not known if
the two subspecies interbreed. Neither is information available to indicate
whether the two populations share the same habitat, or whether they are
spatially or temporally separated (Mendelssohn I982).

A similar case is occurring with two hedgehog species in the coastal plain of
Palestine, where the European Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeus, following
agricultural development, is supplanting the Long-eared Hedgehog Hemiechinus
auritus (Mendelssohn I982).
There still remains the fact that the wolves of the Mediterranean area of Palestine
Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin – Number 20 – December 1990