Dingoes

[Zhou Xuanyao]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/long-time-here-but-dingoes-were-another-china-export/story-e6frg6nf-1226131720982

TINY snippets of DNA from dingoes and domestic dogs reveal that Australia's native dog arrived thousands of years earlier than previously believed -- at the end of a long journey from China.

While dingoes don't appear in the archeological record until roughly 3500 years ago, the genetic evidence suggests the native dog arrived between 4600 and 18,300 years ago.

According to international geneticists, including Alan Wilton of the University of NSW and Peter Savolainen of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, their analysis also reveals the routes dingoes, New Guinea singing dogs (NGSDs) and Polynesian dogs took to their ultimate destinations.

"This gives a clear indication that Polynesian dogs, as well as dingoes and NGSDs, trace their ancestry back to south China through mainland Southeast Asia and Indonesia," they reported yesterday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Previously, it had been believed that dingoes and other dogs spread to Southeast Asia, Oceania and Australia from Taiwan and The Philippines, a route highly dependent on boats.

"Clearly, the land route is much more feasible for dogs than the sea route," said Dr Wilton.

Dr Wilton and Assistant Professor Savolainen built on a 2004 study, conducted with another team, that found dingoes were introduced to Australia about 5000 years ago.

"I told Alan that I didn't agree with that," said Lyn Watson, co-founder of the Dingo Discovery Sanctuary and Research Centre near Melbourne.

"But the new paper makes perfect sense.

" In my long experience with dogs and dingoes they are so physiologically and behaviourally different, dingoes must have been separated from domestic dogs for many thousands of years."

While Australian National University archeologist Peter Bellwood agreed a "Chinese ultimate origin is not in dispute", he claimed genetic-based dating techniques were unreliable.

"And anyway, dogs were not present in (the archeological record) in Indonesia or Australia before 3500 years before present, so obviously the dates are much too old," he said.

But Dr Wilton and Professor Savolainen stand by their team's analysis of DNA from 674 dogs, 232 dingoes and three NGSDs.

[Weasels]

The original article is available for free from the Procedings B website, so if anyone is feeling super-keen they can have a read :D

Link - (will download a PDF in-browser)

Edited September 8, 2011 by Weasels

[Her Majesty Dogmad]

Some idiot is offering these dogs as pets in Sydney, we just found an ad. Dreadful for the dogs, it doesn't mention they'll be desexed before rehoming either.

[Weasels]

Some idiot is offering these dogs as pets in Sydney, we just found an ad. Dreadful for the dogs, it doesn't mention they'll be desexed before rehoming either.

Don't you need a permit to own them in NSW?

[Prydenjoy]

Some idiot is offering these dogs as pets in Sydney, we just found an ad. Dreadful for the dogs, it doesn't mention they'll be desexed before rehoming either.

Don't you need a permit to own them in NSW?

"In NSW the Dingo comes under the [Animal] Companion Act and if you have the money for a registration fee, you can have one," says Barry. "But unfortunately, when the Dingo pup grows up people realise they’ve got something they cannot handle so the animal gets relocated. And accordingly, the NSW Companion Animal Act — with the word companion in it — gives people the idea that the Dingo is just another domestic dog."

http://www.dogslife.com.au/dogs_life_articles?cid=9454&pid=146591

Hmm I'm not sure why anything would want to own a Dingo anyway, but each to their own...

It's incredible what you can learn from studying DNA. The possibilities are endless!