Just like everyone and everything else that was already in Australia when the First Fleet arrived in 1788, dingoes had to adapt to their new reality.
- Professor, University of Sydney
Dingoes are not wild dogs, research reveals. Most of the 307 wild animals sampled in this study were pure dingo. Australia’s apex predator deserves our respect after thousands of years on this land.
Introduced species are often targeted for culling in conservation, but killing charismatic animals like foxes can be controversial.
There is a myth that dingoes are extinct and wild dogs are all that remain in Australia. Our results show dingoes in New South Wales persist despite some mixing with domestic dogs.
Of all Australia’s wildlife, one stands out as having an identity crisis: the dingo. New research has found the dingo is its own species, distinct from ‘wild dogs’.
Dingoes are back in the news, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott raising concerns on ABC radio last week about dingoes in drought-hit areas of Queensland and New South Wales: I’d learnt some years ago on…
Island fauna are particularly vulnerable to new threats. Not only do they have a very limited population size and distribution to begin with, they can display extreme naïveté to new predators, due to a…
The secret to koalas’ distinctive low-pitched vocalisations has been found, according to a [study published today](http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(13%2901344-4) in the journal Current…
A new study by Rebecca Pian, Mike Archer and Sue Hand, published today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, describes the tooth of a new, giant species of extinct platypus. The fossil history of…
The introduced red fox (Vulpes vulpes) has had a devastating impact of Australia’s native mammal fauna, particularly on those in the “Critical Weight Range”, between 35 and 5500 grams. Combined with landscape…
Australia has the world’s worst mammalian extinction records. Since 1788, 21 species have gone extinct in Australia and its territories. This includes 10 rodents, mostly from the arid interior. As with…
Mammals are disappearing in Australia’s Top End, and we’re not really sure why. This is particularly concerning as northern Australia has a human population density of one person per ten square kilometres…
Australia’s small arid zone mammals have greatly suffered since European settlement. Some 11 species are extinct, and a further eight are listed as endangered or critically endangered. Their loss has been…
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