A dingo on Fraser Island, an ancient breed of dog (http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfrasersmith/ / CC BY 2.0)
When something is really dry, Aussie’s might refer to it as being “as dry as a dead dingo’s donger” after all, Australia is a pretty dry place. But if you’ve been around a bit and are clocking up the years, you could also be as “old as a dead dingo’s donger”!
It seems that Australia’s dingo and the New Guinea singing dog may be the world’s oldest dog breeds. A genetic study into the origins of the domestic dog has recently been published in the journal Nature. The dingo and the New Guinea singing dog stand out as being the closest group to wolves compared to other breeds.
Dr Wilton from the University of New South Wales, one of the authors of the paper, said that “It also shows dingoes…have been separated from other breeds of dog in Australia for the past 5,000 years.” This isolation has meant that they are a true thoroughbred.
Dingoes are also thought to have out competed that marsupial dog equivalent, the Thylacine and restricted its range to the only part of Australia not colonised by the canine dingo…Tasmania, hence it’s name the Tasmanian Tiger.
The paper suggests dogs were domesticated in the Middle East, where we think agriculture began 10,000 years ago. Previously it was thought that Asia was the origin of the domestic dog. It makes sense for agriculture and domestication of dogs to occur at the same time.
Other ancient breeds include the Chow-Chow, Basenji, Akita, Chinese Shar-Pei, Siberian husky and Alaskan malamute. But these breeds are much younger than the dingo and probably originated from a separate domestication event developed in the early 19th century in Europe.
And now for some fun, check out this Youtube video of the New Guinea Singing Dog
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