Wild Dingoes Descended From Domestic Dogs

New Scientist ^ | 9-29-2003 | Emma Young

[blam]

Wild dingoes descended from domestic dogs

12:45 29 September 03

NewScientist.com news service

The mysterious origin of Australia's wild dingoes has become substantially clearer following new genetic research. It shows the animals descended from domestic dogs introduced from South East Asia about 5000 years ago.

The ancestry of dingoes has been much debated. The time of arrival, the source and type of animal - wild or domestic - were all uncertain. "There hasn't been a lot of evidence, so everything has been speculation," says Alan Wilton, of the University of New South Wales.

Wilton, with colleagues including Peter Savolainen at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, studied a highly variable portion of mitochondrial DNA from more than 200 dingoes from all states in Australia, from dogs from all continents and from wolves.

They also compared their results with mtDNA sequences of dogs and wolves published by Savolainen in Science in 2002. "And we found that dingoes fall right into the main domestic dog clade," Wilton says.

The new analysis also reveals only small mtDNA differences in the dingoes, suggesting that all the dingoes alive today are descended from very few ancestors - possibly even just one breeding pair.

Food source

The earliest archaeological evidence for dingoes in Australia is 3500 years old. The new date derived from the genetic analysis of 5000 years is consistent with this, Wilton says, and with the expansion of the Austronesian culture into the islands of South East Asia, about 6000 years ago.

Dingo ancestors might have been brought to Australia on Malaccan trading boats, he says, though more likely as a food source than as a pet.

Wilton thinks it would not have taken long for dingoes to become the wild animals they are today. "It's not hard to imagine that as soon as they got here, some would run off and spread rapidly throughout the country," he told New Scientist.

The work also gives new insight into how dingoes are gradually being replaced by dog-dingo hybrids. The mtDNA sequences of both pure-bred dingoes and hybrids matched dingo, not dog, sequences, says Wilton.

Because mtDNA is inherited only through the maternal line, this shows that male dogs are only mating successfully with dingo bitches, but not vice versa.

Wilton presented the research on Monday at a conference on Modern Human Origins - Australian Perspectives, in Sydney.

Emma Young, Sydney

[blam]

Hmmm. I thought we already knew this.

[blam]

Looks like the domestic dog arrived in America thousands of years before they did in Australia.

The Dixie Dingo

[blam]

The Carolina Dog Project

[Tijeras_Slim]

Ancient breed bump

[EggsAckley]

They DO look an awful lot like the Aussie dingoes. Very interesting stuff. Thanks!

[FReepaholic]

"Maybe a dingo ate your baby!" -Elaine Benes in Seinfeld

[blam]

Australian Dingo

[blam]

Dixie Dingo

[Varda]

I guess they're claiming that the mtDNA shows that Dingoes have been differentiated from other SE Asian dogs only 5000 years. This is simply a refinement of the 1997 mtDNA study.

I disagree with the idea that dogs were brought as food. The earliest evidence for dogs in Australia are from purposeful burials complete with red ochre. I doubt that a people that treated dogs this way in death used them as food.

[blam]

"I doubt that a people that treated dogs this way in death used them as food."

I agree.

I've read reports that the Neanderthals hunted in partnership with wild/semi-wild dogs and shared the catch.

[SunkenCiv]

From 2003. Thought we'd pinged this in the past, but I guess not.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[DollyCali]

thanks .. forwarding to my friend John who has a Dingo here in Ohio (pix on my profle page - of both John & his dogs & my oliver)

Thanks for ping Sunken civ..

for you to consider for your "Doggie Ping List" HOTD..

[numberonepal]

Hey blam, if you, or anyone here, knows someone in the Metro Atlanta area that's looking for a Carolina Dog stud please let me know. My boy has all his papers and background. He's getting more and more bold the older he gets so I'm going to have to get him snipped here soon, but I would prefer he "get some" before I do. He is a magnificent specimen, and I do not wish to be paid either with money or puppies. The only thing I'd ask is that we get some good pictures of the pups once they were born.

[blam]

Don't know of anyone, good luck.

[KosmicKitty]

How Bulldogs Hunt for Food

Definitely not a Dingo!!

[SunkenCiv]

The Dixie Dingo
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