MUSEUM OF NATURE

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32775, 27 November 1971, Page 12

MUSEUM OF NATURE

Beautiful and sagacious wild dog of Australia

(Contributed by the Canterbury Museum)

A recent news item mentioned that the dingo (Canis familiaris dingo) was increasing in Australia, appearing in districts where it had not been seen for many years.

Dingoes are beautiful dogs. They are not very large—about the size of a bordercollie, but with larger heads, ears which are always carried erect, and bushy tails. The usual colour is a yellowish-bYown, but yellowish white, blackish, blackishbrown, and piebald individuals have been known, and I have seen a white one, an albino. Their canine teeth on the average are larger than those or most other dogs of their size. Visitors to the Canterbury Museum may see one of these dogs, and a pup, in the Hall of Biology. Dingoes in some districts have interbred with domestic dogs, but even the resulting offspring seem to maintain the dingo characteristics. They are remarkably sagacious, and very cunning. Before the white settlers introduced sheep, young kangaroos were probably their main source of food, but they found sheep an easy prey, much to the disgust of the station owners. Many thousands of pounds were expended in efforts to eliminate the dingo, but it has survived all persecution and has held its own in a way which must win admiration, even if reluctantly. | Yelps, no barks Dingoes do not bark, but give vent to yelps and mournful howls which, along with other characteristics, show how close it still is to the wolf ancestors which all dogs share—hard as this is to believe of Pekinese or chihuahuas.

Years ago, great argument existed as to how the dingo reached Australia. Hypothetical land bridges connecting

Australia with Antarctica, or more plausibly, with Asia, were postulated; the most probable explanation is that it was introduced to Australia by man, the early ancestors of the Aborigines by way of the South-East Asian route, or, far more unlikely, by sea by Malayan people.

Certainly, the Aborigines and dingo have had a long association. It has been reported by various travellers and explorers that the Aboriginal women suckled motherless pups. Two skeletonb Bones of the dingo have been found in association with Aboriginal man’s refuse heaps (middens) in various parts of Australia, but so far, only two complete skeletons have been excavated. One of these was excavated in a very large rockshelter, Fromm’s Landing, South Australia, by my friend,

Derek John Mulvaney. It has been estimated by carbon dating to be about 3000 years old. It is a male, and is now mounted in the University of Sydney. The other—a younger individual, was excavated at a famous Aboriginal encampment site at Murramarang, on the beautiful New South Wales coast, by Mr R. Lampert, of the Department of Pre-history at the Australian National University, and myself, in 1967. The absence of the dingo from Tasmania suggests that it reached the mainland of Australia less than 11,000 years ago. Before that date, it was possible to walk to Tasmania, as the sea was some 70 feet lower than it is today. The dingo may have eliminated some of the smaller mammals which are now extinct in Australia. It certainly plays havoc with sheep; one, however, cannot help admiring this dog for its beauty and sagacity. R.J.S.