Dingo Canis dingo/ Canis lupus dingo

The Dingo is a wild dog native to much of Australia. Some, mainly farming, regions are relatively free of Dingoes due to a "Dingo fence" across a large swathe of the country.

Dingos are generally ginger or sandy-coloured, some darker, some paler, with white patches, often white on the legs and a white tip on the tail. Some have a little black or tan in the coat. Many Dingoes on the Australian mainland have some domestic dog hybridism in their ancestry. Those shown on this page are from Fraser Island, off Brisbane, and said to be pure Dingo.

The taxonomy of the Dingo has been debated and revised multiple times by authorities: some claim it is a subspecies of the (Grey) Wolf, Canis lupus (as is the domestic dog) and others have previously and more recently given it full species status. It is said that its broad skull is more akin to that of Jackals and there are claimed other traits which do not belong to wolves or domestic dogs. The New Guinea Singing Dog is closely related and usually considered a subspecies of Dingo but sometimes considered a breed of domestic dog.

Dingoes have been blamed for disrupting Australian wildlife but it is said they arrived some 5000-8000 years ago and, in fact, they are a key controller of foxes, stoats and feral cats which all arrived with European settlers in the last few hundreds of years and have been the main culprits decimating native wildlife.