'Singing' Dog Thought to Be Extinct in Wild for 50 Years Sighted

The New Guinea singing dog is a remarkably rare breed known for its distinctive howls and barks, being able to make harmonic sounds that have been compared that of a humpback whale.

An estimated mere 200 captive singing dogs reside in conservation centers or zoos. The successors of a few wild dogs were captured in the 1970s.

The singing dog that was regarded to be extinct in the wild for five consecutive decades surprisingly appeared in the remote highlands of Papua, Indonesia witnessed by researchers.

The animal's special and harmonious howl is distinctive by its sharp increase in pitch at the beginning and higher frequencies at the end.

Researchers are looking to breed the special dog species to ensure that they do not disappear for good now that they have come to know that they are not in fact extinct.

It was 2016 when experts found a wild pack of the dog species in Indonesia. An expedition detected and examined 15 of the dogs in the secluded highlands of Papua in West New Guinea. To be able to confirm that these wild highland dogs were predecessors of the singing dog, they launched a new expedition wherein they returned in 2018 to significant results.

The domesticated singing dogs are an identical breed as the solitary hounds that wander in New Guinea's remote locations. By evaluating the evolution of the rare singing dogs' evolution, it is said that they will provide a better decipherment of how humans first began to speak and sing, reported Ancient Origins.

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For confirmation, scientists used DNA on the existence of the New Guinea singing dog, or highland wild dog in Papua in East Indonesia, having been previously known merely from a few hundred inbred specimens captive in zoos.

According to Elaine Ostrander with the National Institutes of Health, the dog appears to be quite like a dingo with it being tan and long-legged. She then added that upon hearing it, one would stop dead in his tracks.

The singing dog is closely associated with the Australian dingo.

"Opera singers love these dogs because they can hit all those really high notes," a zookeeper at Wizard of Paws Wildlife Education Center in Indianapolis said, reported Classic FM.

Genomic analysis on the unusual species was detailed this week in the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Science" that confirmed the cluster of wild dogs found in the New Guinea Highlands as the population from which the singing dogs were obtained.

"Canids make all kinds of sounds, but the sound that New Guinea singing dogs make is different, it's unlike any dog sound you've heard," according to Elaine Ostrander, reported UPI.

The dog species are acutely inbred because of a shortage of new genes.

A comparison of DNA extricated from blood from three of the dogs indicated that they are closely connected to each other than any other dogs and have similar genome sequences.

The genomes were not identical, but the researchers think that the highland dogs are part of the original New Guinea singing dog population. The difference is merely down to inbreeding among the captive New Guinea singing dogs and physical separation for numerous decades.