Thread: canus dingo, nether dog, nor wolf

Originally Posted by 85 county

AHHH so that explains my teenage years

Prerequisites, beer glasses and a genuine regret for the lack of paper bags in the morning.

Originally Posted by UncleHo

I was always under that the Dingo (Canis Familiaris) came to Australia somewhere between 25-35 thousand years ago across the land bridge which the Australian Aborigines used when they arrived here, and as they tell in their "Dreamtime" the Dingo was their semi-domesticated pet/companion animal.

And the Chamberlain incident isn't quite truthful.

There was never a land bridge, Aboriginies came by boat and scientists say they crossed a minimum 70km of sea. That's why we still have marsupials. I thought Indian or Tamil traders brought the dingos about 5000 years ago.

Originally Posted by 2stroke

There was never a land bridge, Aboriginies came by boat and scientists say they crossed a minimum 70km of sea. That's why we still have marsupials. I thought Indian or Tamil traders brought the dingos about 5000 years ago.

Yep, Wallace line. Deep water gap between the continental shelves, even during recent glaciation events. Separates Asian and Australian species. Otherwise we might have had tigers and rhinoceros in Australia.

General thoughts still seem to be that Dingo are a far more recent arrival into Australia than the first Aboriginal peoples, and that they had an Asian origin. Timing and mechanism of arrival still open to debate, but earliest records in Australia are only 3,500 years old.

Re species concept - there isn't really a single precise, all-encompassing definition of what a species is or isn't (although the Biological Species Concept is one we are most familiar with). Some "species" have been found to actually be hybrids (hard corals are a good example), and some established species have arisen through hybridisation. In practice, a combination of genetics, behaviour, competition, selection, resources, habitat and biogeography provide multiple barriers that maintain existing species, but can also provide mechanisms that lead to new species arising or to the extinction of existing species.

However, once again humans have messed with natural processes, deliberately or inadvertently breaching these barriers, so we have problems with some species (such as the Dingo) disappearing due to hybridisation.

Originally Posted by bob10

This 2011 article suggests dingos came from China, 18,000 years ago. That doesn't seem to fit with the aboriginal legend, which I have always thought to be true. As for the Chamberlain story, Mary & I & our two children camped beside the rock, in the camp ground, back when you could. Didn't see any dingos, but there were some big & dangerous looking camp dogs, belonging to the locals, roaming about freely. No way any dingo would come near the camp, with them around, I don't think. Bob
Dingoes originated in China 18,000 years ago - Australian Geographic
PS, any one seen or heard a New Guinea "singing " dog?

Don't know about that, in 1978 in the camp ground there was at least one yellow C. sp remarkably similar to a dingo that would come between you and the camp fire to take scraps while you were sitting around it talking. I have a photo of it head on with the flash glowing in its eyes (not a good image though).

In 1981 at Lake Argyle, we had packed up our rubbish into a garbage bag, it had a number of glass bottles plus meat bones etc so it would have weighed about three kg (I was working as a midwife back then an was pretty good estimating babies weights). During the night we heard rustling outside the tent. I poked outside the flap with the torch to spot another C. sp probably ginger coloured running away with the whole bag in its mouth head held high with its neck stretched and the bag not touching the ground.

Were they both C. Dingo I don't know.

Could a C. Dingo carry away a three or four kg baby without draging it along the ground. Based upon the experience at Lake Argyle I think its possible.

Yes! weird song.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Don't know about that, in 1978 in the camp ground there was at least one yellow C. sp remarkably similar to a dingo that would come between you and the camp fire to take scraps while you were sitting around it talking. I have a photo of it head on with the flash glowing in its eyes (not a good image though).

In 1981 at Lake Argyle, we had packed up our rubbish into a garbage bag, it had a number of glass bottles plus meat bones etc so it would have weighed about three kg (I was working as a midwife back then an was pretty good estimating babies weights). During the night we heard rustling outside the tent. I poked outside the flap with the torch to spot another C. sp probably ginger coloured running away with the whole bag in its mouth head held high with its neck stretched and the bag not touching the ground.

Were they both C. Dingo I don't know.

Could a C. Dingo carry away a three or four kg baby without draging it along the ground. Based upon the experience at Lake Argyle I think its possible.

Yes! weird song.

Interesting, I know we didn't see any at Ayres Rock, but doesn't mean they weren't there, of course. And, we disposed of our rubbish in such a way it couldn't be an attraction for dogs or dingos. Or Goannas, for that matter. Bob

After Azaria went missing there was a mass slaughter of everything that resembled a dog or dingo. At the time even one of the local cops had a dingo or dingo hybrid as a pet.

So while there were quite a few human de-sensitised C. sp around the rock before the Azaria event, the populations were reduced significantly afterwards.

BTW the C. sp at lake Argyle took the bag out of a metal rubish bin, so must have stood on it's hind legs to get up to the top of the bin

I was camping at the rock with my sister and dad
at the same time as the azaria thing. I can remember seeing dingoes around that time in that area