15 interesting dingo facts

  1. The wrist of a dingo is quite unique in the canine world, as it can rotate easily. This helps it use its paws like hands, allowing it to turn a doorknob easily.
  2. The Dingo (Canis lupus dingo) is a domestic dog which has reverted to a wild state for thousands of years and today lives largely independent from humans in the majority of its distribution.
  3. The color of the coat of dingo ranges from golden to yellowish red, with white dingomarkings on the underside, feet, and tip of tail.
  4. The name "dingo" mostly refers to populations occurring in Australia, though dingoes have been proven to exist in Thailand through genetic analyses, where they mostly live close to humans.
  5. Dingo is an intelligent animal, but its domestication is difficult, since it is harder to train and is very independent.
  6. The dingo is considered as an apex predator in Australia and is, together with other domestic dogs, the biggest terrestrial predator there.
  7. The dingoes found in Australia are much larger than those in the Asian continent.
  8. Due to its habit of attacking livestock and the vulnerability of sheep, dingoes and other wild dogs are seen as a pest by the sheep industry and the resulting control methods normally run counter with efforts of conserving the dingo.
  9. The mate chosen by a dingo is for lifetime and the pups born are raised by both the male and the female.
  10. It was estimated that the majority of the modern dingoes are also descended from other domestic dogs.
  11. The animal mates once in a year, between March and June (in Australia) and between August and September (in South East Asia).
  12. The dominant female dingo kills the pups of other female dingoes in the pack. It even gives its own pups to the sub-dominant females, to look after.
  13. A young male dingo is usually solitary, but forms a pack of about 10 animals to hunt and kill the larger kangaroos.
  14. Australian dingo has three basic forms of howling, namely moan, bark-howl, snuff, with at least 10 variations. The frequency of howling varies on season and time of the day, along with lactation, dispersal behavior, breeding, migration and social stability.
  15. The bark of a dingo is usually short and monosyllabic, making many people assume that it does not bark at all.
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