Canis lupus dingo

Canis lupus dingo is a taxonomic rank that includes both the dingo that is native to Australia and the rare New Guinea singing dog that is native to the New Guinea Highlands. It also includes some extinct dogs that were once found in coastal Papua New Guinea and the island of Java in the Indonesian Archipelago. It is a subspecies of Canis lupus. The genetic evidence indicates that the dingo clade originated from East Asian domestic dogs and was introduced through the Malay Archipelago into Australia, with a common ancestry between the Australian dingo and the New Guinea singing dog. Zoological nomenclature is a system of naming animals. In 1758, the Swedish botanist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus published in his Systema Naturae the binomial nomenclature – or the two-word naming – of species. Canis is the Latin word meaning 'dog', and under this genus he listed the dog-like carnivores including domestic dogs, wolves, and jackals. He classified the domestic dog as Canis familiaris, and on the next page he classified the wolf as Canis lupus. Linnaeus considered the dog to be a separate species from the wolf because of its cauda recurvata - its upturning tail which is not found in any other canid. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) advises on the 'correct use of the scientific names of animals'. The ICZN has entered into its official list: Genus Canis in 1926, Canis familiaris as the type species for genus Canis in 1955, and Canis dingo in 1957. These names (such as Canis familiaris and Canis dingo) are then available for use as the correct names for the taxa in question by taxonomists who treat the entities concerned as distinct taxonomic units at species level, rather than as (for example) subtaxa of other species. According to the Principle of Coordination, the same epithets can also be applied at subspecies level, i.e. as the third name in a trinomial name, should the taxonomic treatment being followed prefer such an arrangement. Taxonomy classifies organisms together which possess common characteristics. Nomenclature does not determine the rank to be accorded to any assemblage of animals but only its official name. Therefore, zoologists are free to propose which group of animals with similar characteristics that a taxon might belong to. In 1978, a review to reduce the number species listed under genus Canis proposed that 'Canis dingo is now generally regarded as a distinctive feral domestic dog. Canis familiaris is used for domestic dogs, although taxonomically it should probably be synonymous with Canis lupus.' In 1982, the first edition of Mammal Species of the World included a note under Canis lupus with the comment: 'Probably ancestor of and conspecific with the domestic dog, familiaris. Canis familiaris has page priority over Canis lupus, but both were published simultaneously in Linnaeus (1758), and Canis lupus has been universally used for this species'. In 1999, a study of mitochondrial DNA indicated that the domestic dog may have originated from multiple grey wolf populations, with the dingo and New Guinea singing dog 'breeds' having developed at a time when human populations were more isolated from each other. In 2003, the ICZN ruled in its Opinion 2027 that the 'name of a wild species ... is not invalid by virtue of being predated by the name based on a domestic form'. Additionally, the ICZN placed the taxon Canis lupus as a conserved name on the official list under this opinion. This action by the ICZN removed confusion, so that taxonomists would not have to refer to the wolf as Canis familiaris because the domestic form was named before the wild form. In the third edition of Mammal Species of the World published in 2005, the mammalogist W. Christopher Wozencraft listed under the wolf Canis lupus its wild subspecies, and proposed two additional subspecies: 'familiaris Linneaus, 1758 ' and 'dingo Meyer, 1793 ', with the comment 'Includes the domestic dog as a subspecies, with the dingo provisionally separate – artificial variants created by domestication and selective breeding. Although this may stretch the subspecies concept, it retains the correct allocation of synonyms.' Wozencraft included hallstromi – the New Guinea singing dog – as a taxonomic synonym for the dingo. Wozencraft referred to the mDNA study as one of the guides in forming his decision. The inclusion of familiaris and dingo under a 'domestic dog' clade has been noted by other mammalogists. This classification by Wozencraft is debated among zoologists. Mathew Crowther, Stephen Jackson, and Colin Groves disagree with Wozencraft and argue that based on ICZN Opinion 2027, a domestic animal cannot be a subspecies. Crowther, Juliet Clutton-Brock and others argue that because the dingo differs from wolves by behavior, morphology, and because the dingo and dog do not fall genetically within the extant wolf clade, that the dingo should be considered the distinct taxon Canis dingo Meyer 1793. Janice Koler-Matznick and others believe that the New Guinea singing dog Canis hallstromi Troughton 1957 should not be classified under Canis lupus dingo on the grounds that it has behavioral, morphological and molecular characteristics that are distinct from the wolf. Jackson and Groves regard the dog Canis familiaris as a taxonomic synonym for the wolf Canis lupus with them both equally ranked at the species level. They also disagree with Crowther, based on the overlap between dogs and dingoes in their morphology, in their ability to easily hybridize with each other, and that they show the signs of domestication by both having a cranium of smaller capacity than their progenitor, the wolf. Given that Canis familiaris Linnaeus 1758 has date priority over Canis dingo Meyer 1793, they regard the dingo as a junior taxonomic synonym for the dog Canis familiaris (i.e. being the equivalent with familiaris named first). Further, the dingo is regarded as a feral dog because it descended from domesticated ancestors. Gheorghe Benga and others support the dingo as a subspecies of the dog Canis familiaris dingo Meyer 1793 with the domestic dog being the subspecies Canis familiaris familiaris. The paleontologists Xiaoming Wang and Richard H. Tedford propose that the dog could be taxonomically classified as Canis lupus familiaris under the Biological Species Concept because the dog can interbreed with the gray wolf Canis lupus, and classified as Canis familiaris under the Evolutionary Species Concept because the dog has commenced down a separate evolutionary pathway to the gray wolf. In 2019, a study further argued that the dingo is a distinct species. It found little evidence of domestication by humans and that admixture with domestic dogs had occurred only recently. Ten days later this was rebutted on taxonomic and genomic grounds.