An extremely rare breed of dog called New Guinea singing dog which was believed to be extinct, has been found. Know for unique barks and howls, its harmonic sounds that have been always been compared to the calls of a humpback whale. A dingo-like animal with a unique howling style is severely inbred due to a lack of new genes. The animal was believed to have disappeared from the highlands of New Guinea, however, was found recently on the island’s Indonesian side. Only around 200 captive singing dogs live in conservation centres or zoos which are all the descendants of a few wild dogs captured in the 1970s. Woolly Flying Squirrel Spotted in Gangotri National Park in Uttarakhand.

None of the dogs was found in their natural habitat for half a century until 2016, it was during an expedition that 15 wild dogs were located and studied in the remote highlands of the western side of New Guinea, known as Papua, in Indonesia. In 2018, a new expedition returned to the study site and collected detailed biological samples to confirm whether these highland wild dogs truly are the predecessors of the singing dogs or not. 14,000-Year-Old Puppy Found a Decade Ago in Russia Ate a Wolly Rhinoceros as Last Meal! (View Pics)

According to the San Diego Zoo, the singing dog's joints and spine are extremely flexible and can climb and jump like a cat. The zoo said that sonograms had shown that this dog's unique wail is similar to the song of the humpback whale. To learn more about these canines, zoologist James McIntyre led a field expedition to the highlands of Papua and collected faecal samples from 15 highland wild dogs, which looked, acted, and howled like New Guinean singing dogs. Two years later, the researchers managed to trap and collect blood samples from three of the animals. Pariah to Bully Kutta, Know 5 Indie Breeds That One Can Get as Pets.
The scientists sequenced the genomes of the three dogs and compared it to the nuclear DNA of 16 captive New Guinean singing dogs, 25 dingoes, and more than 1000 dogs from 161 other breeds. The highland wild dogs and New Guinean singing dogs have nearly identical genetic profiles, according to a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Both are also closely related to dingoes, and slightly more distantly to other dogs of East Asian origin like the chow chow, Akita, and shiba inu.
New Guinea Singing Dog Singing:

 The New Guinean singing dogs’ genome has degraded because of inbreeding, and the highland wild dogs’ genome contains bits from local village dogs, but they are essentially the same dog, explains study co-author Elaine Ostrander, a geneticist at the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute.
 Peter Dwyer, a zoologist at the University of Melbourne says the new study is “very useful” for ongoing work to understand the relationships between wild dogs throughout the southwestern Pacific. But more evidence is needed to conclude that both New Guinean singing dogs and highland wild dogs represent a recognisable ancient population, and aren’t descendants of local village dogs.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 01, 2020 01:36 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).