ABOVE: Highland wild dog, © ANANG DIANTO
The distinct, mournful howl of a highland wild dog was once a mainstay in Papua, but for the past 50 years, scientists had considered them extinct in the wild. Fewer than 300 of their domestic counterparts, commonly called New Guinean singing dogs, are held in captivity across the globe, and their numbers are suffering from inbreeding. A genetic analysis of wild dogs, published Monday (August 31) in PNAS, confirms that these canines are still living in the wild.
There have been a few anecdotal sightings of these dingo-like canines over the years, though many conservationists assumed they were strays related to the captive singing dogs, which make a sound like a blend of wolf howls and whale calls.
The wild dogs were discovered near a gold mine in 2016 by zoologist James McIntyre, who went on to found and preside over the New ...
