• Zagorath@aussie.zone
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    10 days ago

    The article focuses a lot on the idea that dingoes should be considered a native species because (a) their purity is higher than often thought, and (b) even if their purity isn’t that high, they’re still dingoes and very distinct from wild dogs.

    But what goes basically ignored is the fact that dingoes aren’t a distinct species. As the article says, they diverged from dogs “more than 5,000 years ago”. Evolutionarily speaking, that isn’t very long. It might be long enough to distinguish dingoes from other dogs even though you can’t distinguish a rottweiler from a pug. But it’s not long enough to speciate. It is certainly not enough time for the actual native species of Australia to have evolved adaptations. Dingoes are not native species in the way possums, kookaburras, and echidnas are. Heck, they haven’t even been here for anywhere near as long as humans have. About 1/10th as long, in fact.