@indi I think culture is also a big and unignorable part of it. Like you said in the post we're working as much off of cultural constructs of animals as much as of the animals themselves.
@starkatt Another wrinkle that I do want to mention about the cultural-construct stuff is how recurrent some of them seem to be.
One could MAYBE argue that all European 'trickster fox' myths have a common source, and the same for North American 'trickster coyote' myths (Though I wouldn't do so personally)
But then one has to contend with how foxes and coyotes share a similar ecological niche on different continents with a vast cultural separation, and end up with very similar story tropes.
@indi I hadn't actually considered how foxes and coyotes share a similar niche. Definitely a thing worth thinking about in terms of archetype congruences.
@indi I'm not familiar with jackal mythology?
@starkatt i don't have any resources immediately handy, but as I recall, it's about what you'd expect. :)
@starkatt (Of course, scavenger/psychopomp is an easy thing to derive in the first place)
@starkatt Also consider jackals. And the trickster/psychopomp connection that is sometimes a thing. ;)