

The researchers propose restoring the dingo's scientific name to Canis dingo, a name that would recognize the animals as distinct from both wolves and domestic dogs. “Now any wild canid – dingo, dog, or hybrid of the two – can be judged against that classification,” the researchers said in a statement.

The team also found that dingoes don't necessarily have to be tan-colored they can be black, white or dark brown, too. The Australian animals may be descendants of Asian dingoes that were.

Dingoes, the researchers found, have anatomical features that set them apart from dogs and wolves, including a wider head and longer snout, The Scientist writes. The dingo is legendary as Australias wild dog, though it also occurs in Southeast Asia. They examined 69 dingo skulls that dated back to 1900 or earlier-presumably before dingoes would have encountered and interbred with domesticated dogs, which only arrived in Australia when Europeans did. Unfortunately, due to their compatibility to breed with wild dogs, the population of wild, purebred dingoes is unknown and possibly extinct on mainland. (Other definitions for dingo that I've seen before include 'Wild Australian dog', 'Wild creature', 'Aussie wild dog', 'Wild dog of Oz', 'Kipling's yellow dog'. (I've seen this in another clue) This is the entire clue. 'Dingoes are a native Australian animal, and many people don't like the idea of using lethal control on native animals. In a new study, researchers challenged that assumption. I believe the answer is: dingo 'australian wild dog' is the definition. ''Wild dog' isn't a scientific termit's a euphemism,' says Dr. However, their official name was soon changed to Canis lupus dingo, on the assumption that dingoes were, in fact, a subspecies of wolf and within the same evolutionary clade as domestic dogs. At that time, they were called Canis dingo. They are not only a distinct species, but also a distinct group of predators, separate from dogs and wolves, The Scientist reports.ĭingoes arrived in Australia several thousands years ago, and they were first mentioned as a species in 1793. Southern Australias Strzelecki Desert is home to two very different landscapes: an area of 10-meter-high sand dunes with patches of dense woody shrubs. But it turns out that dingoes are more unique than that. Dingoes might look like your run-of-the-mill mongrel pooch, and for years, researchers assumed the dingo's ancestors were domesticated dogs from East Asia that subsequently went wild.
