April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
When I think of a dingo, I think of a sad scene in the Tom Selleck movie, “Quigley Down Under” where the dingoes are attacking and Cora has to decide if she will repeat her mistakes, or let the aboriginal child cry. Like many of you, I’m sure, I considered them to be just another version of a coyote, no different from any other.
A new study from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and the University of Sydney, however, reveals that the dingo is a distinctly Australian animal. The findings, published in the Journal of Zoology, shed new light on the dingo’s defining physical characteristics. The research team also resurrects the name Canis dingo, which was first given to the species by German naturalist Friedrich Meyer in 1793.
The research team, led by USNW’s Dr. Mike Letnic and Dr. Mathew Crowther of the University of Sydney, explain that the confusion over whether the dingo is a distinct species began, in part, with the scientific classification of the Australian dingo, which was based on a simple drawing and description in the journal of Australia’s first governor, Arthur Phillip. This classification had no reference to a physical specimen.
Finding a specimen of a dingo that was unlikely to have bred with domestic dogs was a challenge. The team searched museum collections across Europe and the US, looking for specimens that were known, or were likely, to pre-date 1900, including those from archaeological sites.
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