Dingo–dog hybrid
| Dingo–dog hybrid | |
|---|---|
| Red Australian Cattle Dog, a dog breed that originated from interbreeding of Australian dingoes and other domestic dogs | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Canidae |
| Subtribe: | Canina |
| Genus: | Canis |
| Species: | |
A dingo–dog hybrid is a hybrid cross between a dingo and a domestic dog. The current population of free ranging domestic dogs in Australia is probably higher than in the past. However, the proportion of the so-called "pure" dingoes (dogs with exclusively dingo-ancestry) has been on the decrease over the last few decades due to hybridisation and is regarded as further decreasing.
Because of this ongoing interbreeding of dingoes and domestic dogs and the resulting hybrids, there is a much wider range of colours and body shapes today among the Australian wild dog population than in the time before the human introduction of domestic dogs. The full extent of the effects of this process is currently unknown and the possibility of potential problems, as well as the wish to preserve the "pure" dingo, often leads to a strong rejection of the interbreeding.
In 2023, a study of 402 wild and captive dingoes using 195,000 points across the dingo genome indicates that past studies of hybridisation were over-estimated and that pure dingoes are more common than they were originally thought to be.
In 2021, DNA testing of over 5,000 wild-living canines from across Australia found that 31 were feral domestic dogs and 27 were first generation hybrids. This finding challenges the perception that dingoes are nearly extinct and have been replaced by feral domestic dogs.