By Alice Klein.
Sandy won a competition and had her genome mapped.
Barry Eggleton runs the Pure Dingo Sanctuary.
The Australian dingo's genome is different from modern dog breeds, suggesting that the canines have never been domesticated in the past.
The dingo is a type of dog that arrived in Australia around 5000 to 8500 years ago and is now found in most of the country. It is thought to be descended from an ancient domestic dog breed that was introduced by Asian seafarers. Some question if dingoes were ever domesticated.
There was a debate between myself and a number of other people about whether dingoes are just another domestic dog.
After winning a competition to sequence the DNA of the dingo, Ballard and his colleagues began to sequence the genome.
Sandy, a pure desert dingo, was rescued from the side of a road in central Australia when she was 3 weeks old.
The researchers took skin and blood samples from Sandy. She was compared with five domestic dog breeds: German shepherds, boxers, basenjis, Great Danes and Labrador retrievers.
The dingo is a genetic intermediate between domestic dogs and wild wolves. There is more variation between dingoes and domestic dogs than between humans.
dingoes spent thousands of years cut off from other dog species, giving them time to evolve in their own unique way. Europeans introduced modern domestic dogs in Australia in the 18th century.
Domestic dogs have evolved multiple copies of a gene that allows them to digest food. Humans domesticated the rice crop around 10,000 years ago. A low-starch diet consisting of marsupials and reptiles is what dingos have, similar to wolves and some dog breeds.
The idea that dingoes were never truly domesticated is reinforced by this. The dingo may have been introduced to Australia as a tame wild animal, meaning that it has become accustomed to living with people, but hasn't been actively domesticated through breeding.
The findings have implications for how dingoes are treated. dingoes, feral domestic dogs and their hybrid are culled to prevent them from attacking livestock in many parts of Australia.
There is no difference between a dingo and a domestic dog if you see one running around.
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