The resulting uncertainty has led to confusion about their status. Previously, understanding of dingo hybridisation with dogs was based on unreliable observations from skull morphology and physical appearance. “Dingoes are an important native animal, as our largest mammalian predator,” says Cairns, “and they are culturally important to First Nations Australians.” But there is concern that wild dingoes have interbred with dogs to such a degree that they’re virtually extinct. Hybridisation is not all bad – it’s helped some species to adapt to changing climates or gain disease resistance. “Hybridisation can be a problem between wild and domestic animals or two species of wild populations,” says Cairns, “because it can change or alter the identity and biology of the species, ‘diluting’ the wild population into extinction.” But their lineage, thought to diverge 8000-12,000 years ago from their ancestral population, is distinct from domesticated dogs.Ĭontrary to the latter dogs, Cairns and colleagues explain in their paper, dingoes are truly wild-living animals that don’t rely on food and water from humans or human settlements.Ĭredit: Chontelle Burns, Neuveau Rise Photography, Newcastleīut there is growing concern about interbreeding – hybridisation – between wild and domestic canids, which could weaken the genetic identity of dingoes. Technically, dingoes – which include New Guinea singing dogs – are part of the canid family. “I think that moving forwards it is important that governments, wildlife managers and agriculture industry groups use the name dingo to describe these wild canines because this is what they are.” “The results challenge the widespread use of the term ‘wild dog’,” says lead author Kylie Cairns from the University of New South Wales. The research, published in the journal Australian Mammalogy, found virtually no feral dogs across the continent as commonly thought and very little evidence of interbreeding between dingoes ( Canis lupus dingo) and domestic dogs ( Canis familiaris). Fraser Island: dingoes and tourists never mixĪ new study has found that most Australian dingoes have pure dingo ancestry, certifying their importance as native apex predators rather than pests.Pesticides to blame for bigger dingoes?.Dingo: the charismatic and controversial canid.
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