A new study on the genetics of the New Guinea Singing Dog holds the promise of improving the chances of the rare breed's survival. This Background Check discusses the NGSD, and the implications of the new discovery of a previously unknown population of related Wild Highland Dogs.
Compared to other dingoes, the NGSDs have shorter legs and a broader head. They are dark chocolate in color at birth and change to light brown by six weeks. Adult NGSD coats are varied and colors include brown, black, tan, ginger, and russet. Their breeding season starts in August and wild pups are born beginning in December.
They are called singing dogs because at daybreak and dusk they howl in chorus, a characteristic harmonic vocalization which is described as a wolf howl with overtones of whalesong. NGSD singing is believed to be a communication method used to keep far-flung packs in touch with one another—which in retrospect has been rather sad since the different conservation packs are in different countries.
Because of the taxonomic issue, they couldn't be assigned endangered species status, but specialists have still been concerned about the conservation status of the breed.
There are genetic differences, stemming from the decades of isolation of the NGSD, but in the main, they are closely related to the NGSD and can be used to support the captive populations of NGDS.
A pack of New Guinea highland wild dogs are thought to be closely related to New Guinea Singing Dogs. This highland wild dog was photographed in 2020. Credit: Anang Dianto
What is a New Guinea Singing Dog?
The New Guinea Singing Dog (NGSD) is a breed of domestic dog, a small dingo which until recently was known only from captive breeding groups. Dingoes are domestic dogs that originated from East Asia, arriving at least 3,500 years ago, probably about 5,000 years ago as companions to people.Compared to other dingoes, the NGSDs have shorter legs and a broader head. They are dark chocolate in color at birth and change to light brown by six weeks. Adult NGSD coats are varied and colors include brown, black, tan, ginger, and russet. Their breeding season starts in August and wild pups are born beginning in December.
They are called singing dogs because at daybreak and dusk they howl in chorus, a characteristic harmonic vocalization which is described as a wolf howl with overtones of whalesong. NGSD singing is believed to be a communication method used to keep far-flung packs in touch with one another—which in retrospect has been rather sad since the different conservation packs are in different countries.
Taxonomy
Until now, there were thought to only be between 200–300 NGSD in the world, scattered in breeding collections in different countries. All of them are descended from about eight founder dogs collected from New Guinea herders in the 1960s and 1970s. Various taxonomic schemes have been proposed, but in the end, NGSD and dingoes are domesticated dog breeds, not separate species, and as such, they are all properly thought of as Canis lupus familiaris.Because of the taxonomic issue, they couldn't be assigned endangered species status, but specialists have still been concerned about the conservation status of the breed.
A Population Discovered
The news report issued on August 31, 2020, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science by Indonesian biologist Suriani Surbakti and colleagues, describes a newly discovered pack of New Guinea Wild Dogs living in the mountains of New Guinea. The pack of about 15 dogs was discovered by the New Guinea Highland Wild Dog Foundation and the University of Papua.There are genetic differences, stemming from the decades of isolation of the NGSD, but in the main, they are closely related to the NGSD and can be used to support the captive populations of NGDS.
Sources and Further Reading
- Browning, David and Peter Herstein. "Environmental Vocalization Adaptation: Animals Compensating for Restricted Visibility and Mobility." The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 141, no. 5, 2017, pp. 3715-3715, doi:10.1121/1.4988127.
- Cairns, Kylie M. et al. "Conservation Implications for Dingoes from the Maternal and Paternal Genome: Multiple Populations, Dog Introgression, and Demography." Ecology and Evolution, vol. 7, no. 22, 2017, pp. 9787-9807, doi:10.1002/ece3.3487.
- Cairns, Kylie M. and Alan N. Wilton. "New Insights on the History of Canids in Oceania Based on Mitochondrial and Nuclear Data." Genetica, vol. 144, no. 5, 2016, pp. 553-565, doi:10.1007/s10709-016-9924-z.
- Dwyer, Peter D. and Monica Minnegal. "Wild Dogs and Village Dogs in New Guinea: Were They Different?" Australian Mammalogy, vol. 38, no. 1, 2016, pp. 1-11, doi:10.1071/AM15011.
- Jackson, Stephen M. et al. "The Dogma of Dingoes—Taxonomic Status of the Dingo: A Reply to Smith et al." Zootaxa, vol. 4564, no. 1, 2019, p. 15, doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4564.1.7.
- Koler-Matznick, Janice et al. "An Ethogram for the New Guinea Singing (Wild) Dog (Canis Hallstromi)." 2005. The New Guinea Singing Dog Conservation Society.
- Koler-Matznick, Janice et al. "An Updated Description of the New Guinea Singing Dog (Canis Hallstromi, Troughton 1957)." Journal of Zoology, vol. 261, no. 2, 2003, pp. 109-118, doi:10.1017/s0952836903004060.
- Koler-Matznick, Janice et al. "The New Guinea Singing Dog: Its Status and Scientific Importance." Australian Mammalogy, vol. 29, no. 1, 2007, pp. 47-56, doi:10.1071/AM07005.
- Larson, Greger et al. "Rethinking Dog Domestication by Integrating Genetics, Archeology, and Biogeography." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, no. 23, 2012, pp. 8878-8883, doi:10.1073/pnas.1203005109.
- Surbakti, Suriani et al. "New Guinea Highland Wild Dogs Are the Original New Guinea Singing Dogs." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020, doi:10.1073/pnas.1203005109