Geographic Range

The black-backed jackal can be found only in Africa. The species lives in two discrete areas separated by roughly 900km. One region includes the southern-most tip of the continent including South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe. The other area is along the eastern coastline, including Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia (Smithers 1983). This separation may exist for geographical reasons. Between both populations lies Olduvai Gorge (part of the Great Rift Valley) in northern Tanzania. This landscape is extremely arid making living conditions for most organisms extremely difficult.

Biogeographic Regions: ethiopian (Native )