This is actually something being debated in Australia. Until a few years ago, Dingoes were considered the same species as the regular dog Canis familiaris. Recent DNA studies have shown them to be distinct, however. So now there’s Canis dingo. Only, Dingoes can interbreed with the regular dog, which normally is the test for them being the same species. Maybe that makes them a subspecies?
So, yeah - even we don’t know what they are. If they were raised by humans, they are happy friendly doggos. If in the wild, then they’re dingoes.
Not that simple. Brown bears and polar bears produce fertile offspring, as do bison and cattle, and the false killer whale with a bottlenose dolphin. (Far from an exhaustive list)
It’s generally a useful definition but it isn’t a “rule”.
They are not, it’s just some breed representation thing, and they certainly look more dingoey than a Jack Russel, but at least in the United States, it’s likely to be trace amounts. Source, I own two, but admittedly neither have had any sort of genetic test so I guess my hearsay is as good as yours…I should find out, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they had up to a quarter dingo somehow.
They actually are a dingo cross breed. The Blue Heeler and The Red Australian Cattle Dog are both mixed with dingo. English breeds were not able to handle Australia and were bred with captured dingos for toughness.
There seems to be some confusion with how a hybrid could breed in this chain.
Cell Division is what causes problems for Hybrid animals reproducing.
If the cell begins dividing and the chromosomes within can not find like pairs the cell stops dividing and will not become an animal.
Dogs and Dingos are close enough that even though not all chromosomes are paired correctly, they can still create a viable animal.
Dingos are wild dogs, they’re descendants of Dogs brought to Australia about 4,000 years ago.
No disagreement on viability of the offspring and their subsequent ability to mate further down, only a disagreement about percentage between single digit up to “half” in the current breed (as it exists in the USA). I believe it’s notably diluted from the original cross for reasons I stated in my other reply, but I’m curious about my red since she’s considerably more dingo-esque than my blue.
No I just mean in general, the Australian cattle dog was originally created by crossing herding breeds (mostly speckled collies) with the native dingo. The collies couldn’t handle the heat so they introduced a breed that was capable of doing so.
If you do a genetics test it’ll just show them as being “Australian cattle dog” cause that’s what the genetic markers are identified as now.
Right, but they’re no longer half dingo after the multitude of generations has passed in whichever pedigree, because for whichever innate temperament traits you might desire, along with the inability to selectively breed for physical ones with a wild dog, you wouldn’t take a second generation heeler and cross a dingo back in just to keep the percentage up. I don’t honestly know the whole history but it’s conceivable that enough of the original breed starters contained sufficient “dingo” to keep the content up.
I thought I had read that one of the various tests…wisdom panel maybe…was providing results indicating wild crosses, including dingo. My thinking was that any significant percentage would show, but time will tell, since we have whichever brand that was, and just need to collect and run the sample.
Canis Lupus and Canis Latrans also can and do breed with Canis Familiaris. The ability to interbreed is one test for being the same species but not the only test. Libraries worth of books are out there on the subject and there are lively debate as to where animals fit in the taxonomy.
Canis familiaris is a subspecies of C. lupus as of 2005. There is a push to distinguish it as a distinct species but that is not the current consensus.
“Testing” for speciation is pretty silly, tbh, because it’s an arbitrary distinction no matter what. Our placement of rigid definitions onto the constant gradual process of evolution is always going to have edge cases and outliers. So we give things useful labels and move on until we have better tools (DNA analysis has been great) or have need of better definitions.
Does dogs being wolves do anything for the general public? No, but that’s what common names are for. Does the distinction of Canis lupus familiaris help scientists right now? Probably. If not there’d be a stronger push to change it.
So Australia just had evil stray dogs that adapted to the extreme Australian environment like every other evil thing in Australia, meanwhile in Russia you got stray dogs riding public transportation and learning to scavenge and beg. It’s all the environment.
Species is a social construct and debates like this prove it. People can’t agree what the line between different species is, because the line is socially constructed.
This is actually something being debated in Australia. Until a few years ago, Dingoes were considered the same species as the regular dog Canis familiaris. Recent DNA studies have shown them to be distinct, however. So now there’s Canis dingo. Only, Dingoes can interbreed with the regular dog, which normally is the test for them being the same species. Maybe that makes them a subspecies?
So, yeah - even we don’t know what they are. If they were raised by humans, they are happy friendly doggos. If in the wild, then they’re dingoes.
It depends if their progeny can reproduce. A male donkey and a female horse can make a mule but mules are sterile.
Not that simple. Brown bears and polar bears produce fertile offspring, as do bison and cattle, and the false killer whale with a bottlenose dolphin. (Far from an exhaustive list)
It’s generally a useful definition but it isn’t a “rule”.
Blue heelers are half dingo I believe.
They are not, it’s just some breed representation thing, and they certainly look more dingoey than a Jack Russel, but at least in the United States, it’s likely to be trace amounts. Source, I own two, but admittedly neither have had any sort of genetic test so I guess my hearsay is as good as yours…I should find out, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they had up to a quarter dingo somehow.
They actually are a dingo cross breed. The Blue Heeler and The Red Australian Cattle Dog are both mixed with dingo. English breeds were not able to handle Australia and were bred with captured dingos for toughness.
There seems to be some confusion with how a hybrid could breed in this chain.
Cell Division is what causes problems for Hybrid animals reproducing.
If the cell begins dividing and the chromosomes within can not find like pairs the cell stops dividing and will not become an animal.
Dogs and Dingos are close enough that even though not all chromosomes are paired correctly, they can still create a viable animal.
Dingos are wild dogs, they’re descendants of Dogs brought to Australia about 4,000 years ago.
No disagreement on viability of the offspring and their subsequent ability to mate further down, only a disagreement about percentage between single digit up to “half” in the current breed (as it exists in the USA). I believe it’s notably diluted from the original cross for reasons I stated in my other reply, but I’m curious about my red since she’s considerably more dingo-esque than my blue.
Anecdotal evidence is the best evidence, right?
No I just mean in general, the Australian cattle dog was originally created by crossing herding breeds (mostly speckled collies) with the native dingo. The collies couldn’t handle the heat so they introduced a breed that was capable of doing so.
If you do a genetics test it’ll just show them as being “Australian cattle dog” cause that’s what the genetic markers are identified as now.
Right, but they’re no longer half dingo after the multitude of generations has passed in whichever pedigree, because for whichever innate temperament traits you might desire, along with the inability to selectively breed for physical ones with a wild dog, you wouldn’t take a second generation heeler and cross a dingo back in just to keep the percentage up. I don’t honestly know the whole history but it’s conceivable that enough of the original breed starters contained sufficient “dingo” to keep the content up.
I thought I had read that one of the various tests…wisdom panel maybe…was providing results indicating wild crosses, including dingo. My thinking was that any significant percentage would show, but time will tell, since we have whichever brand that was, and just need to collect and run the sample.
Canis Lupus and Canis Latrans also can and do breed with Canis Familiaris. The ability to interbreed is one test for being the same species but not the only test. Libraries worth of books are out there on the subject and there are lively debate as to where animals fit in the taxonomy.
Canis familiaris is a subspecies of C. lupus as of 2005. There is a push to distinguish it as a distinct species but that is not the current consensus.
“Testing” for speciation is pretty silly, tbh, because it’s an arbitrary distinction no matter what. Our placement of rigid definitions onto the constant gradual process of evolution is always going to have edge cases and outliers. So we give things useful labels and move on until we have better tools (DNA analysis has been great) or have need of better definitions.
Does dogs being wolves do anything for the general public? No, but that’s what common names are for. Does the distinction of Canis lupus familiaris help scientists right now? Probably. If not there’d be a stronger push to change it.
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In the scale of human lives, no. In the scale of human history, yeah. In the scale of planetary or universal history… it was a few seconds ago.
So Australia just had evil stray dogs that adapted to the extreme Australian environment like every other evil thing in Australia, meanwhile in Russia you got stray dogs riding public transportation and learning to scavenge and beg. It’s all the environment.
Wolves are also nice doggos when raised by humans.
Species is a social construct and debates like this prove it. People can’t agree what the line between different species is, because the line is socially constructed.