Dingo

• 1. Introduction

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  The dingo, a lean wild dog of Australia, first appears under that name in 1789, in Watkin Tench's Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay. Tench wrote: "The only domestic animal they have is the dog, which in their language is called Dingo, and a good deal resembles the fox dog of England." He added that these animals were shy of the newcomers and attached to the natives. One of them lived with the Governor and was "tolerably reconciled to his new master." More than two centuries later, scientists still disagree about what to call the animal he described. Is it a dog, a wolf, or a species of its own? Is it wild or domesticated? How did it reach a continent cut off from Asia by open sea? And why is an animal that Australian law counts as native also treated as a pest across much of the country?

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• 2. Names and Stories

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  The word dingo comes from the Dharug language of the Indigenous Australians around Sydney. Related Dharug words include "ting-ko", meaning "bitch", and "tun-go-wo-re-gal", meaning "large dog".

  Other peoples across the continent used their own words for the animal. Recorded names include boolomo, dwer-da, joogoong, kal, kurpany, maliki, mirigung, noggum, papa-inura, and wantibirri.

  On K'gari, formerly Fraser Island in Queensland, the dingo is called wongari. It holds a significant place in the culture of the island's traditional owners, the Butchulla people.

  In the Yarralin region of the Northern Territory, people call the dingoes that live with them walaku. Those that live in the wilderness are ngurakin. The word walaku also covers dogs in general. Some authors read this as a real divide between camp dingoes and wild ones. Colonial settlers in New South Wales used the name dingo only for camp dogs. One proposal holds that those camp dingoes turned wild only after colonial settlement destroyed Aboriginal society.

  An elder of the Yarralin people says the Dreamtime dingo is the ancestor of both dingoes and humans. The dingoes, he says, "are what we would be if we were not what we are." Most published myths come from the Western Desert, and they show remarkable complexity. In some the dingo is a central character, and in others a minor one. Stories describe creation, acceptable behaviour, shapeshifters who change between human and dingo, and "dingo-people". Others explain how waterholes or mountains came to be. At Cape York Peninsula, a ceremonial keen takes the form of howling. Yet the dingo is rarely painted in caves, far less often than the extinct thylacine.

  In 1802, the surveyor Francis Barrallier found that five dogs of European origin had reached a place before him. Aboriginal people had taken up the newcomers' dogs almost at once.

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• 3. A Contested Identity

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  In 1623, Jan Carstenszoon recorded dogs living with indigenous people near the Cape York Peninsula. In 1699, Captain William Dampier visited the coast of what is now Western Australia. He wrote that "my men saw two or three beasts like hungry wolves, lean like so many skeletons, being nothing but skin and bones."

  In 1788, the First Fleet reached Botany Bay under Arthur Phillip, Australia's first colonial governor. Phillip took ownership of a dingo and wrote a brief description of it, with an illustration, as the "Dog of New South Wales". In 1793, Friedrich Meyer used that sketch to classify the animal as Canis dingo. Meyer did not say whether it lived wild or tame. He noted only that it seemed to have "lost little of its wild condition".

  Modern names are no more settled. Publications use Canis familiaris dingo, Canis dingo, and Canis lupus dingo, among others. In 2005, the mammalogist W. Christopher Wozencraft listed the dingo as a form of domestic dog under the wolf. He also treated the New Guinea singing dog as the same animal. In 2019, a workshop of the IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group judged both to be feral dogs, so neither should be assessed for the IUCN Red List. In 2020, the American Society of Mammalogists called the dingo a synonym of the domestic dog. Sequencing of a pure wild dingo from South Australia found a DNA methylation pattern different from the German Shepherd's.

  The word feral fits because the dingo descends from domesticated ancestors. Its bond with Indigenous Australians is commensalism, a close association in which neither side depends on the other to survive. They hunt and sleep together, yet the dingo can live alone. Because it was never selectively bred, its status as a domestic animal stays unclear.

  A 2024 study found that the dingo and the New Guinea singing dog carry 5.5% of their genome from the ancestor of the recently extinct Japanese wolf. Japanese dogs carry 4%. That mixing happened before the wolf's ancestor reached Japan.

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• 4. Crossing the Sea

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  The Madura Caves on the Nullarbor Plain, in south-eastern Western Australia, yielded dingo remains estimated at 3,450 years old. Others came from Woombah Midden near Woombah, New South Wales, at 3,320 years, and from Fromme's Landing on the Murray River near Mannum, South Australia, at 3,170 years. Bones from a rock shelter at Mount Burr, South Australia, first looked 7,000-8,500 years old. Later excavation showed the layers had been disturbed, and the dingo remains had "probably moved to an earlier level."

  For years, the accepted story said dingoes arrived about 4,000 years ago and took 500 years to spread. But those dates came from the sediments around the bones, not the bones. In 2018, bones from the Madura Caves were carbon dated directly, to between 3,348 and 3,081 years ago. The next most reliable date is for dried flesh from Thylacine Hole, 110 km west of Eucla, at 2,200 years.

  The oldest bones barely differ from those of modern dingoes. That suggests nobody has bred the animal for any trait over thousands of years. It looks like an early form of dog that lived and bred in the wild, cut off from other dogs until European settlers arrived.

  Tasmania separated from the mainland 12,000 years ago, and no dingo remains have been found there. So the dingo probably arrived between 3,500 and 12,000 years ago. Even at the lowest sea level of the last glacial maximum, the route from Island Southeast Asia crossed at least 50 km of open water. The dogs must have travelled aboard human boats. Once they landed, Indigenous Australians probably passed them along quickly. Judging by how fast dogs spread across Tasmania and cats across Australia, the dingo may have covered the continent in only 70 years. The red fox needed an estimated 60-80.

  The wider trail leads back through Asia. A 2020 study of ancient mitochondrial DNA from the Yellow River and Yangtze River basins in southern China found mostly one lineage, called haplogroup A1b. It is common among dingoes and the pre-colonial dogs of the Pacific but rare in China today. Dogs of other lineages replaced it there about 2,000 years ago. The oldest reliable dog remains are from Vietnam at 4,000 years, Timor-Leste at 3,000, the Torres Strait at 2,100, and Caution Bay near Port Moresby at 2,500-2,300. No ancient New Guinea singing dog remains have turned up.

  Genomes tell a far older story than the bones. A 2020 sequencing study placed the dingo's ancestors in southern East Asia, moving through Island Southeast Asia 9,900 years ago and reaching Australia 8,300 years ago. The humans who carried them remain unknown. The dingo also carries about 2% of its genome from the Tibetan wolf. Its genes show a domestic dog slowly turning feral, with changes in regions that regulate metabolism, neurodevelopment, and reproduction.

  Whole genome analysis splits today's dingoes into three groups: Northeast (Tropical), Southeast (Alpine), and West and Central (Desert).

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• 5. Built to Climb

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  Unlike most dogs, the dingo can rotate its wrists, which lets it turn doorknobs or lift latches to escape confinement. Its shoulder joints are unusually flexible, so it climbs fences, cliffs, trees, and rocks. It prefers high vantage points. Wolves lack this ability. The Norwegian Lundehund, bred on isolated Norwegian islands to hunt among cliffs and rocks, has a similar adaptation. The dingo's body is lean and hardy, built for speed, agility, and stamina, and it can reach 60 kilometres per hour.

  Weight and length shift between the wild and captivity. The average wild male weighs 15.8 kg and the female 14.1 kg. Captive males average 18.9 kg and females 16.2 kg, thanks to better food and veterinary care. Wild males average 125 cm in length and females 122 cm, against 136 cm and 133 cm in captivity. Wild dingoes rarely carry fat, and their ribs often show. Dingoes in northern and northwestern Australia are often larger than those in the centre and south.

  The head is the widest part of the body, wedge-shaped and large for its size. The eyes are almond-shaped and hazel to dark, and the ears stand erect high on the skull. Next to a dog, the dingo has a longer muzzle, longer carnassial teeth, and longer, more slender canines. A 2014 study of pre-20th century skulls found differences from dogs, but critics replied that the figures fall within the wide range of domestic dogs. The dingo's brain is larger than a dog's of the same body weight, closer to a wolf's. In this it resembles two other mesopredators, the dhole and the coyote.

  Ginger coats, ranging from deep rust to pale cream, cover 74% of dingoes. Black and tan dingoes make up 12%, solid white 2%, and solid black 1%. Only three genes affect dingo coat colour, against nine in the domestic dog. Ginger is dominant. White dingoes and black and tan dingoes each breed true, and crossing them gives a sandy colour. The coat is not oily and has no doglike odour. In the tropical north the dingo has a single coat. In the cold southern mountains it grows a thick double coat with a wolf-grey undercoat.

  Wild dingoes live 3-5 years, and few pass 7-8. Captive dingoes live 14-16 years, and one reached just under 20.

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• 6. Eating and Hunting

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  Across Australia, federal and state governments ran a 20-year study of dingo diet, examining 13,000 stomach and fecal samples. The samples showed 177 prey species. Mammals made up 72.3% of the diet across 71 species, and birds 18.8% across 53 species. Seeds accounted for 3.3%, reptiles 1.8% across 23 species, and insects, fish, crabs, and frogs 3.8% across 28 species. The researchers could not tell dingo samples from those of hybrids or feral dogs. About 80% of the diet came from 11 species, including red kangaroo, swamp wallaby, cattle, sheep, and European rabbit.

  On the tropical coast of northern Australia, agile wallabies, dusky rats, and magpie geese supply 80% of the diet. On the Nullarbor Plain, dingoes eat twice as much rabbit as red kangaroo. In Central Australia, rabbits have replaced native mammals, and in droughts cattle carcasses supply most of the diet. On the Fortescue River, red kangaroos and common wallaroos dominate. In the eastern mountains, wallabies feed dingoes on the lower slopes and wombats on the higher ones.

  The Strzelecki Desert shows how little water a dingo needs. Tracked animals visited water points every 3-5 days, and two survived 22 days without any. In arid country, weaned pups get most of their water from food. Females there have been seen regurgitating water for them.

  Dingoes usually attack from behind and kill by biting the throat. Pack size follows the prey. Against a large kangaroo, lead dingoes chase it toward packmates who cut corners, and the exhausted animal is killed. Hyenas, wolves, and African wild dogs use the same tactic. A pack is three times as likely as a single dingo to bring down a kangaroo. In one area of Central Australia, dingoes drive kangaroos into a wire fence to hold them still. The largest male red kangaroos tend to ignore dingoes. A large eastern grey kangaroo once fought off a single dingo for over an hour.

  Cattle and buffalo are mostly safe when healthy and grown, so dingoes work on sick or injured young. A 1992 study in the Fortescue River region saw cattle circle their calves or charge. Of 26 approaches, 24 involved more than one dingo, and only four ended with a calf killed. Sheep are easier targets. In 68 chases, 26 sheep were seriously injured but only eight died. Dingoes seemed less interested in sheep than in kangaroo.

  Some hunting methods are inventive. On Fraser Island, dingoes have used waves to trap, tire, and drown an adult swamp wallaby and an echidna. In the northern wetlands, a lone dingo may distract magpie geese while a white-breasted sea eagle makes a kill too heavy to carry. The dingo then drives the eagle off. Dingoes also scavenge prey dropped from sea eagle nesting platforms.

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• 7. Voices and Packs

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  Growling makes up about 65% of dingo vocalisations, while barking is only 5%. Researchers have identified eight sound classes with 19 sound types. The bark is short, monosyllabic, and used almost entirely for warnings. A bark-howl starts with several barks and fades into a rising and ebbing howl, probably to alert pups and packmates. Dingoes also wail when approaching a waterhole, probably to warn any dingoes already there. The zoologist Alfred Brehm reported one dingo that learned a more typical bark while its brother did not.

  Howls come in three basic forms, moans, bark-howls, and snuffs, with at least 10 variations. Dingoes howl over long distances to call packmates, find other dogs, or keep intruders away. In a chorus, pitch variety grows with the number of howlers. So dingoes are suspected of judging pack size without seeing it, and variable choruses may also make a pack seem larger. Observers in Germany also heard a sound they called Schrappen, a bite intention in which the teeth clash without touching the other animal.

  A dingo pack usually consists of a mated pair, their offspring from the current year, and sometimes offspring from the previous year. Single dingoes make up 73% of sightings, pairs 16%, trios 5%, and groups of four 3%. Packs of five to seven also make up 3%. The average monthly pack size runs from three to 12. Young males are often solitary and nomadic. The breeding male leads when the pack travels, eats, or first approaches water. Subordinates come to a dominant dog crouched, with ears flat and tail down. Attempts to form artificial packs of captive dingoes have failed.

  The mating season usually runs from March to May, though some sources say April to June. Only the alpha pair normally breeds. The alpha female tends to come into heat first and suppresses mating by other females, and some subordinate females have false pregnancies. Gestation lasts 61-69 days, and litters range from 1 to 10 pups, usually 5. Pups of subordinate females are usually killed by the alpha female. That keeps population growth low even in good times, perhaps as an adaptation to Australia's swings in conditions.

  Pups are born mostly between May and August, in dens that are often underground. Reports include abandoned rabbit burrows, hollow logs, and wombat burrows. At 3 weeks the pups leave the den for the first time, and at 8 weeks they leave it entirely. By 9 to 12 weeks every pack member helps them move to solid food. Young dingoes become independent at 3-6 months or disperse at 10 months.

  In Western Australia in the 1970s, about 10% of captured dogs, all younger than 12 months, were later recaptured far away. Males had travelled 21.7 km on average and females 11 km.

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• 8. Pest or Protector

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  On the 28th of September 2010, Victoria made an Order in Council allowing dingoes to be trapped, shot, or baited on private land across its far north-west and all of the state north-east of Melbourne. The order protects dingoes on state-owned land. The split is typical of a country with no single rule for the dingo. The Australian government counts any species present before the year 1400 as native, and protects the dingo in its parks and reserves. Queensland and Western Australia list it as a pest or declared pest. South Australia's Dog Fence Act of 1946 requires landowners to destroy wild dogs near the fence. In New South Wales, a dingo is a dog under the Companion Animals Act, and can be kept as a pet. Tasmania has no native dingoes and requires a permit to import one.

  The quarrel began when livestock farming spread across Australia in the early 1800s. Dingoes preyed on sheep and cattle, and pastoralists and supportive government bodies shot, trapped, and poisoned them. West of the Darling River, early pastoralists found dingoes could outrun defenceless sheep. Settlers called dingoes devious and cowardly because they would not fight and vanished into the bush. Trappers earned prestige, and from the 1960s politicians began calling opponents "dingo". The word still means coward and cheat.

  The real cost is harder to pin down. A Queensland government report put the annual cost of wild dogs at about $30 million. That counts livestock losses, disease spread, and control, and livestock losses alone could be as high as $18 million. In Barcaldine, Queensland, up to one-fifth of all sheep are killed by dingoes each year, described as an epidemic. In 2006, cattle losses on Northern Territory rangeland were estimated at up to 30%. But a 2018 study in northern South Australia found calf loss averaged 18.6%, with no clear fall from baiting. Pestivirus and leptospirosis were major causes, and dingoes then scavenged the carcasses. Sheep and goat owners often tolerate no wild dogs at all. Cattle owners are more mixed.

  Ecologists see a different animal. Some researchers suggest the dingo drove the thylacine, the Tasmanian devil, and the Tasmanian native hen from the mainland. More recent work points to climate change and growing human populations instead. Dingoes are now treated as apex predators. The largest known population of critically endangered night parrots was found in an area kept free of introduced predators by dingoes. Golden-shouldered parrots have fledged successfully at termite mound nests that dingoes regularly visit. Red fox numbers are especially high where dingoes are few. Outside the Dingo Fence, emus are fewer than inside it. Some conservationists therefore want dingoes allowed to increase or be reintroduced.

  Dingo attacks on people are mostly minor, and most involve people feeding wild dingoes, especially on K'gari. A few have been fatal. One was the death of two-month-old Azaria Chamberlain in the Northern Territory in 1980.

  The policy of the Western Australian government is to promote eradication in livestock grazing areas and leave dingoes undisturbed in the rest of the state.

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