Dingo synonyms

The dingo was, however, almost certainly brought from Asia by the ancestors of the modern natives; while the Papuan pig is also in all probability a human introduction, very likely of much later date.

The main point of interest connected with the dingo relates to its origin; that is to say, whether it is a member of the indigenous Australian fauna (among which it is the only large placental mammal), or whether it has been introduced into the country by man.

And since remains of man have apparently not yet been detected in these deposits, it has been thought by some naturalists that the dingo must be an indigenous species.

On the whole, then, the most probable explanation of the case is that the dingo is an introduced species closely allied to the Indian pariah dog.

Very different, on the other hand, is the condition of things in Australia and Papua, where marsupials (and monotremes) are the dominant forms of mammalian life, the placentals being represented (apart from bats, which are mainly of an Asiatic type) only by a number of more or less aberrant rodents belonging to the mouse-tribe, and in Australia by the dingo, or native dog, and in New Guinea by a wild pig.