Gary Owens, age 11, of Wichita, Kan., for his question:
WHERE DID THE DINGO ORIGINATE?
For thousands of years, the home of the yellow dog dingo has been the island continent of Australia. But this was not his original home. There is evidence that his ancestors arrived there in the dim distant past, most likely from some part of Asia. No doubt they were hunting dogs taken along by early human explorers.
Australia is the home of the gentle marsupials. There, for millions of years, they developed peaceably, with a minimum of meat eating predators. All this time there were none of the usual large cats or fierce wild dogs.
However, when at last the white settlers arrived, they found that the yellow dog dingo was quite at home on the island continent. He preyed on the gentle wallabies, and we now know that he already had wiped out at least one marsupial species.
Experts found fossil remains that prove the dingo had been there some 6,000 years. But obviously this was not his original home.
In recent times we have learned that prehistoric peoples went on fantastic voyages, especially around the vast Pacific Ocean. Some of them reached Australia and settled there as aborigines. It seems likely that they brought along their tools, weapons and their hunting dogs.
No doubt some of these half tame dingos escaped and took to the wilds. Marsupials were plentiful and easy to catch, and, in the wilds, the dingos were able to make a comfortable living for themselves. They became very successful wild dogs, thrived and multiplied.
Evidence suggests that the dingo is related to the fierce dhole dog of India and to the common pariah dog of Asia. In prehistory, some of these dogs were half tamed by primitive hunters in many widely separated regions. Many of these early peoples were ocean explorers. At present we cannot be certain which of them took the dingo to Australia hence we cannot pinpoint his original home.
The dingo looks like a handsome German Shepard with a somewhat longer, bushy tail. Often he is golden yellow with white booties and a white tip on his tail. However, he may be reddish brown or almost black. He can whine and howl.
But, like his wild cousins of Asia, the dingo cannot utter a true dog like bark.