The possible earliest written use of the word in English occurred in 1808 by soldier Thomas Williamson, who encountered the animal in Ramghur district, India.

[17] The first study on the origins of the species was conducted by paleontologist Erich Thenius, who concluded in 1955 that the dhole was a post-Pleistocene descendant of a golden jackal-like ancestor.

In the Late Pleistocene era the European dhole (C. a. europaeus) was modern-looking and the transformation of the lower molar into a single cusped, slicing tooth had been completed; however, its size was comparable with that of a wolf.

This consists of a jaw fragment and teeth of Late Pleistocene age found in San Josecito Cave in northeast Mexico, dating to around 27–11,000 years ago.

[36] Subsequent authors, including Juliet Clutton-Brock, noted greater morphological similarities to canids of the genera Canis, Dusicyon and Alopex than to either Speothos or Lycaon, with any resemblance to the latter two being due to convergent evolution.

[38][39][40][41]: p149  Subsequent studies on the canid genome revealed that the dhole and African wild dog are closely related to members of the genus Canis.

[42] This closeness to Canis may have been confirmed in a menagerie in Madras, where according to zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock there is a record of a dhole that interbred with a golden jackal.

[44] In 2018, whole genome sequencing was used to compare all members (apart from the black-backed and side-striped jackals) of the genus Canis, along with the dhole and the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus).

However, there is no evidence of the dhole having existed in the Middle East nor North Africa,[45] though the Lycaon was present in Europe during the Early Pleistocene, with its last record in the region dating to 830,000 years ago.

However, the Canid Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) states that further research is needed because all of the samples were from the southern part of this species' range and the Tien Shan subspecies has distinct morphology.

In the winter coat, the back is clothed in a saturated rusty-red to reddish colour with brownish highlights along the top of the head, neck and shoulders.

[59] The dhole has a wide and massive skull with a well-developed sagittal crest,[12] and its masseter muscles are highly developed compared to other canid species, giving the face an almost hyena-like appearance.

[61] The upper molars are weak, being one third to one half the size of those of wolves and have only one cusp as opposed to between two and four, as is usual in canids,[12] an adaptation thought to improve shearing ability and thus speed of prey consumption.

[52][62] In appearance, the dhole has been variously described as combining the physical characteristics of the gray wolf and the red fox,[12] and as being "cat-like" on account of its long backbone and slender limbs.

[1] The dholes also once inhabited the alpine steppes extending into Kashmir to the Ladakh area, though they disappeared from 60% of their historic range in India during the past century.

[1] In India, Myanmar, Indochina, Indonesia and China, it prefers forested areas in alpine zones and is occasionally sighted in plains regions.

[1] However, the dhole might be present in the eastern Sayan Mountains and in the Transbaikal region; it has been sighted in Tofalaria in the Irkutsk Oblast, the Republic of Buryatia and Zabaykalsky Krai.

[68] In 2011 to 2013, local government officials and herders reported the presence of several dhole packs at elevations of 2,000 to 3,500 m (6,600 to 11,500 ft) near Taxkorgan Nature Reserve in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

Several packs and a female adult with pups were also recorded by camera traps at elevations of around 2,500 to 4,000 m (8,200 to 13,100 ft) in Yanchiwan National Nature Reserve in the northern Gansu Province in 2013–2014.

[80] Its range is highly fragmented in the Malaysian Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Vietnam and Thailand, with the Vietnamese population considered to be possibly extinct.

[1] In 2014, camera trap videos in the montane tropical forests at 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in the Kerinci Seblat National Park in Sumatra revealed its continued presence.

[81] A camera trapping survey in the Khao Ang Rue Nai Wildlife Sanctuary in Thailand from January 2008 to February 2010 documented one healthy dhole pack.

[1] One single individual was claimed to have been shot in 2013 in the nearby Kabardino-Balkaria Republic of Russia in the central Caucasus; its remains were analysed in May 2015 by a biologist from the Kabardino-Balkarian State University, who concluded that the skull was indeed that of a dhole.

[86] In August 2015, researchers from the National Museum of Natural History and the Karadeniz Technical University started an expedition to track and document possible Turkish population of dhole.

[113] In Kashmir, they prey on markhor,[43] and thamin in Myanmar,[11] Malayan tapir, Sumatran serow in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula and Javan rusa in Java.

[113] Leopold von Schrenck had trouble obtaining dhole specimens during his exploration of Amurland, as the local Gilyaks greatly feared the species.

[13] Dholes appear in Rudyard Kipling's Red Dog, where they are portrayed as aggressive and bloodthirsty animals which descend from the Deccan Plateau into the Seeonee Hills inhabited by Mowgli and his adopted wolf pack to cause carnage among the jungle's denizens.

With Mowgli and Kaa's help, the Seeonee wolf pack manages to wipe out the dholes by leading them through bee hives and torrential waters before finishing off the rest in battle.

[133] A fictional version of the dhole, imbued with supernatural abilities, appears in a sixth-season episode of TV series The X-Files, titled "Alpha".

Brian Houghton Hodgson kept captured dholes in captivity, and found, with the exception of one animal, they remained shy and vicious even after 10 months.