The dingo is a wild dog endemic to Australia with enigmatic origins. Dingoes are one of two remaining unadmixed populations of an early East Asian dog lineage, the other being wild dogs from the New Guinea highlands, but connections between these groups have long proved elusive. To investigate this issue, scientists from the University of Sydney and elsewhere examined ancient dingo remains found at Lake Mungo and Lake Milkengay, in western New South Wales, Australia. Their findings suggest that the dingo came from East Asia via Melanesia and challenge previous claims that it derived from pariah dogs of India or Thailand.
Koungoulos et al. discovered for the first time clear links between fossils of the iconic Australian dingo and dogs from East Asia and New Guinea. Image credit: Sharkolot.
Dingoes are wild dogs endemic to Australia, with enigmatic origins and a heavily-debated identity.
They are closer genetic relatives of East Asian dogs than wolves or other wild canids, but they exhibit a number of traits comparable to wild canids that are absent or otherwise unusual in domestic dogs.
Dingoes maintain stable wild populations entirely independent of reliance on human-derived resources and/or recruitment from domestic populations, a uniquely naturalised status shared only by closely-related dogs found in the highlands of New Guinea.
As such, dingoes are considered by some to be amongst the earliest-established naturalised populations of any formerly domestic mammal, and certainly the oldest known example for Canis familiaris.
“The origins of this controversial Australian native animal have been heavily debated for more than a century,” said University of Sydney’s Dr. Loukas Koungoulos, lead auther of the study.
“Our research has found the elusive first links between fossil material that suggest dingoes have evolved locally from an East Asian dog-like ancestor.”
“The archaeological sites at Lake Mungo and Lake Milkengay hold some of the oldest evidence of dingoes in the whole of Australia.”
“It is incredible to see how these remarkable animals have evolved over thousands of years and gives us a greater understanding of this uniquely Australian species.”
In the study, Dr. Koungoulos and colleagues analyzed the remains of ancient dingoes found at Lake Mungo and Lake Milkengay in western New South Wales.
They used radiocarbon dating to discover that some remains were over 3,000 years old.
They discovered the first evidence of links between early dingoes and their northern relatives.
“Our research underscores the antiquity of dingoes, pointing to a common ancestor between dingoes and the more recent canines in Southeast Asia,” said Dr. Melanie Fillios from the University of New England.
The authors also found that modern-day dingoes have evolved to become larger and leaner, standing at an average of 54 cm tall compared to between 40-47 cm for their ancient ancestors — a size much closer to their contemporary relatives in Southeast Asia and Melanesia.
“Our results reaffirm prior characterisations of regional variability in dingo phenotype as not exclusively derived from recent domestic dog hybridisation but as having an earlier precedent, and suggest further that the dingo’s phenotype has changed over time,” they said.
The findings appear in the journal Scientific Reports.
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L.G. Koungoulos et al. 2024. Phenotypic diversity in early Australian dingoes revealed by traditional and 3D geometric morphometric analysis. Sci Rep 14, 21228; doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-65729-3
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