DNA puts mother of all dingoes at 3000BC

SMH.com.au ^ | September 29, 2003

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

About 5000 years ago, an Indonesian villager collected his favourite dog, climbed into a canoe and set out across the sea to the land south of his island.

It is just possible that dog became the original dingo - the Eve of the Australian native canine.

According to DNA research unveiled yesterday at a University of NSW conference on the origins of modern humans, dingoes may be the descendants of a single pregnant female brought to Australia 50 centuries ago.

The mapping of human mitochondrial DNA, handed down from mother to son, has already been used to support the still highly controversial theory that modern man migrated out of Africa about 100,000 years ago.

Now another team - UNSW geneticist Alan Wilton and Professor Peter Savolainen, of the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden - has studied the mitochondrial DNA of 211 dingoes from all states.

"All the dingoes have a very similar DNA type," Dr Wilton said yesterday. Mutations, which occur naturally over time, were rare.

"Any variation we find in a population is only a single mutation away from the main type. Based on this . . . we put the time of arrival of the dingo at about 5000 years ago." The oldest dingo remains found in Australia date back 3500 years.

Dr Wilton said the DNA findings suggested dingoes descended from a very small number of dogs brought from South-East Asia - a few hundred, a single pair or possibly just one dog.

"The data would fit a single female . . . that was pregnant." His team might have identified a dingo Eve, just as scientists had "traced the human population back to a mitochondrial Eve".

While domesticated dingoes were probably brought to Australia as hunting dogs, and as living blankets to keep their masters warm at night, they might also have been eaten by humans.

However, some were important enough to have been taken home to Indonesia. Lice carried by kangaroos have been found on Australian dingoes and on dogs in South-East Asia.

"There is some evidence of the travel of dogs backwards and forwards," Dr Wilton said.

However, pure dingoes were now vanishing because of interbreeding with feral dogs. He estimated 80 per cent in eastern Australia were now hybrids.

Dr Wilton hopes eventually to DNA test dingo faeces to create a genetic census of Australia's surviving native dogs.

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

The DINGO ate my baby!

[balrog666]

Dingo pingo!

[PatrickHenry]

PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]

[4mycountry]

I've heard of a MOAB...but a MOAD?

[Monty22]

[PatrickHenry]

[StatesEnemy]

DNA puts mother of all dingoes at 3000BC

That's one ol' bitch.

[Defiant]

About 5000 years ago, an Indonesian villager collected his favourite dog, climbed into a canoe and set out across the sea to the land south of his island.

More likely, some Indonesian saw the ugliest dog he had ever seen, and he threw it in the ocean. Unfortunately, it caught a wave and floated to Australia. Incidentally, that's how Hillary got here.

[Consort]

I never met a Dingologist.

[PatrickHenry]

From the article:
Dr Wilton hopes eventually to DNA test dingo faeces to create a genetic census of Australia's surviving native dogs.

A thankless task.

[Salamander]

Paleo-dogs rule........:))

http://www.ibizan-hound.com/

[js1138]

Here's a breed that's been around at least 5000 years, possibly 8000.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[Ditter]

Is that a dingo? It looks like a Mexican Yellow Dog. Thats our name for the yellow dogs you see in Mexico & in the border towns.

[Aracelis]

"The data would fit a single female . . . that was pregnant."

G-G-Gosh! You mean they didn't come up with a conclusion first and try to fit the data in somehow??? Jeepers! These guys must be scientists! < /sarcasm>

[stands2reason]

The MOTHER OF ALL DINGOES ate my baby! (has a better ring, doesn't it?)

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

The MOTHER OF ALL DINGOES ate my baby!

Okay...I have to agree with you on this one.

That just screams THEDINGOATEMYBABY in a way I never imagined!

[PatrickHenry]

These guys must be scientists!

Yes. And now that there is scientific proof that the dingo was aboard Noah's Ark, you must finally admit that your darwinistical nonsense is the devil's handiwork.

[Neat adjective, huh?]

[BiffWondercat]

As I said to Blam, "dogs are the noblest of creation, and should treated as such".

By that inference - I do not relent on OUE - Old Universe Evolution as opposed to YEC; I am only greatful that we have such wonderful company to share existence with.
(Cats are cool too, but they have an unknown agenda!)

I admit that I am a fool who knows little, but I do know that it is unwise to place trust in someone in whom animals are uncomfortable with.....

[PatrickHenry]

As Mark Twain once said: "Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in."