The New Guinea song dog, a species considered extinct, reappears

In New Guinea, the song dog, believed to be extinct, has reappeared.

PATTI MCNEAL / CC / WIKIMEDIA

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In Indonesia, on the island of New Guinea, an animal believed to be extinct has reappeared.

Scientists are clear, it is the New Guinea song dog, also called "New Guinea dingo". 

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With our correspondent in the region

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It took long scientific expeditions, years of chasing after this very particular song, to find its trace, and DNA tests to confirm it: the dingo still exists in the wild on the third largest island in the world.

Zoologists will therefore be able to work for its conservation but above all to study it better, and this is good news because this animal, about which we currently know very little, seems quite exceptional. 

James K. McIntyre is one of those passionate scientists who followed villagers' indications in the mountains to find footprints and then see this animal with his own eyes.

He describes these red-haired canids as as flexible as monkeys, allowing them to be at the top of the food chain in their remote surroundings, and was able to hear them sing in harmony, with that sound some compare to Austrian yodels and to others to the songs of the whales.

Our paper is now live in PNAS that demonstrates the New Guinea Singing dog (once thought extinct) DOES EXIST in the extreme highlands of Papua New Guinea.

@NGHWDF_org @PNASNews https://t.co/ISi8W9Tjhg

  Brian W Davis (@Brian_W_Davis) August 31, 2020

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• Indonesia

• Biodiversity

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