Researchers believe that a group of dogs discovered in New Guinea, Indonesia, are of the same bloodline of an original pack of rare wild dogs.
Known as New Guinea Highland Wild Dogs by locals, the canines are also called ‘New Guinea Singing Dogs’ by some people due to their vocal nature.
Until the last few years it was thought these dogs only existed in captivity, within a total population of about 200. Among the rarest breed alive in the world, these captive dogs were however not 100% New Guinea Highland dogs as they had been inbred.
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In fact until 2016, New Guinea Highland dogs had not been spotted in the wild for around 50-years and were thought to be extinct. So rare are they that they have been called ‘living fossils’.
Since the 2016 discovery, a group of researchers, led by James McIntyre, the founder of the New Guinea Highland Wild Dog Foundation, have been doing further research on these ancient canines. This involved taking DNA samples from two wild dogs.
And according to a journal in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they claim that the pack of dogs discovered are indeed the original wild ‘singing’ dogs.
They also found that the wild dogs shared shared 72% of their DNA with their captive ‘cousins’.
McIntyre has described the discovery as “a key ‘missing link’ canid that held the answers to so many questions that science has yet to reveal,” – in terms of the link between ancient dogs and modern domesticated dogs.
You can click on the video below to find out a bit more about why these hounds are called singing dogs!
Image credits: New Guinea Highland Wild Dog Foundation