As the time passes, the endangered species list gets longer and longer. But many of these extinct species have been rediscovered and that is a positive sign. This time, the breed which was spotted belonged to a unique ancient dog that was extinct some 50 years back.
The species is the New Guinea singing dog and researchers rediscovered it after research of half a century. There were only a few dogs in captivity and the researchers were completely shocked when they saw them in the remote areas of Papua, Indonesia.
These breeds were closely related to dingos and they were known for their very unique and melodious way to howl. It was in 2016 that an expedition conducted by the New Guinea Highland Wild Dog Foundation saw a pack of 15 wild dogs near a gold mine.
After a couple of years, a research team returned to collect DNA samples and GPS data from the dogs and compared them with those dogs which were in captivity and found that they had an over 70% genetic overlap. So they are closely related.
According to Elaine Ostrander, a geneticist at the US National Human Genome Research Institute, they looked related to a population of conservation biology New Guinea singing dogs which were descended from eight dogs brought to the United States many years ago.
Elaine further added that New Guinea singing dogs are very rare. They are exotic. They have this beautiful harmonic voice that is not found anywhere else in nature. So losing that species was not a good thing. It should not disappear. Really it is good news that such dogs are still found.
