Beauty Of Animal | Dingo | The dingo is a free-roaming dog mainly
found on the continent of Australia. Domestic and pariah dogs in southern Asia
share so many characteristics with Australian dingoes that experts now consider
them to be, if not "dingoes" in the Australian sense of the word
(which implies an independent, wild animal, integrated into the ecosystem),
members of the taxon Canis lupus dingo, a particular subspecies of Canis lupus.
While the relationship with humans varies widely among these animals, they are
all quite similar in terms of physical features, A dingo has a relatively broad
head, a pointed muzzle, and erect ears.
Eye colour varies from yellow over
orange to brown. Compared to other similarly sized familiaris dogs, dingoes
have longer muzzles, larger carnassials, longer canine teeth, and flatter
skulls with larger nuchal lines. The dingo is legendary as Australia's wild
dog, though it also occurs in Southeast Asia. The Australian animals may be
descendents of Asian dingoes that were introduced to the continent some 3,000
to 4,000 years ago. These golden or reddish-colored canids may live alone
(especially young males) or in packs of up to ten animals. They roam great
distances and communicate with wolf-like howls.
Dingo hunting is opportunistic. Animals
hunt alone or in cooperative packs. They pursue small game such as rabbits,
rodents, birds, and lizards. These dogs will eat fruits and plants as well.
They also scavenge from humans, particularly in their Asian range. Dingoes
breed only once a year. Females typically give birth to about five pups, which
are not independent until six to eight months of age. In packs, a dominant
breeding female will kill the offspring of other females. Australia is home to
so many of these animals that they are generally considered pests. A famous
"dingo fence" has been erected to protect grazing lands for the
continent's herds of sheep. It is likely that more dingoes live in Australia
today than when Europeans first arrived.
Though dingoes are numerous, their
pure genetic strain is gradually being compromised. They can and do interbreed
with domestic dogs to produce hybrid animals. Studies suggest that more than a
third of southeastern Australia's dingoes are hybrids. The average Australian dingo is 52 to 60
cm (20 to 24 in) tall at the shoulders and measures 117 to 154 cm (46 to 61 in)
from nose to tail tip. The average weight is 13 to 20 kg (29 to 44 lb);
however, there are a few records of outsized dingoes weighing up to 27 to 35 kg
(60 to 77 lb). Males are typically larger and heavier than females of the same
age. Dingoes from the North and the North-West of Australia are larger than
Central and South-Australian populations. Australian dingoes are invariably
heavier than Asian ones. The legs are about half the length of the body and the
head put together. The hind feet make up a third of the hind legs and have no
dewclaws. Dingoes can have sabre-form tails (typically carried erect with a
curve towards the back) or tails carried directly on the back
A dingo's natural habitat can range from
deserts, to grasslands and on the verge of forests. They cannot live too far
away from water, and they normally settle their homes in dens, deserted rabbit
holes, and hollow logs. Dingoes play an important role in Australia's
ecosystems; they are apex predators and the continent's largest terrestrial
predator. However, dingoes and feral domesticated dogs are seen as pests by the
sheep industry, because of their attacks on livestock – with the resultant control
methods normally running counter to dingo conservation efforts. Conversely, the
cattle industry may benefit from the predation of dingoes on rabbits,
kangaroos, and rats. Furthermore, they have significant roles in the cultures
of some Aboriginal people.
Today, the majority of the modern
"dingoes" are thought to be also descended from more recently
introduced domestic dogs. The number of these so-called dingo hybrids has
increased significantly over the last decades, and the dingo is therefore now classified
as vulnerable. The dingo has several names in both scientific and
non-scientific literature, of which the word "dingo" is the most
common term. Furthermore, on the Australian continent, the term "wild
dog" is now used very often in both areas. In most cases, this term
includes dingoes, dingo-hybrids, and all other feral dogs. Dingoes are quite
abundant in large parts of Australia, and yet some argue that they are
endangered due to interbreeding with other dogs in many parts of their range
Current taxonomy classifies the Australian dingo, together with its closest
relatives outside of Australia, as Canis lupus dingo, a subspecies of grey wolf
separate from the familiar common dog, Canis lupus familiaris, while still
united with familiaris as an intrataxonomic clade called. An older taxonomy,
used throughout most of the 20th century, applied the epithet Canis familiaris
dingo to the dingo.
This taxonomy assumed that domestic dogs
are a distinct species from the grey wolf, with the dingo classified as a
subspecies of domestic dog. Furthermore, the terms Canis dingo, which
classifies the dingo as a separate species from both dogs and wolves, and
"Canis lupus familiaris var. dingo, which treats the dingo as a variety of
the domesticated subspecies of gray wolf, are in use. The most common name is
dingo. This term originated in the early times of European colonisation in New
South Wales and is most likely derived from the word tingo, used by the
aboriginal people of Port Jackson for their camp dogs. Depending on the area
where they live, the dingoes in Australia are occasionally called alpine
dingoes, desert dingoes, northern dingoes, Cape York dingoes, or tropical
dingoes.
In recent times, people have begun to call them "Australian
native dogs" or, reasoning that they are a subspecies of Canis lupus, an
"Australian wolf". The dingo also has different names in the
multitude of different Indigenous Australian languages. Those names include
joogong, mirigung, noggum, boolomo, papa-inura, wantibirri, maliki, kal,
dwer-da, kurpany, aringka, palangamwari, repeti and warrigal. Some languages
provide for different names for the dingoes depending on where they live; the
Yarralin, for instance, call the dingoes that live with them walaku and the
ones living in the wilderness ngurakin.
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