UNSW Dingo DNA study could be the first test of Darwin's 'challenging' theory

[Cattledog]

http://www.theland.com.au/story/4540851/the-orphaned-pup-that-could-put-darwins-theory-to-the-test/

Thanks to a dingo pup found close to death on a lonely outback track, scientists may get the first opportunity to test one of Charles Darwin's most challenging hypotheses.

Sandy and her two siblings were three weeks old when they were rescued near the Strzelecki Track in central Australia by Barry and Lyn Eggleton in 2014.

The holidaymakers nearly ran over two of the pups huddled on the road. They found a third nearby, but no sign of their mother or a den.

The dingoes were tiny - all three could fit in Mr Eggleton's hand. They were dehydrated and covered in parasites. With the help of vets, the couple nursed them back to health and raised them.

Sandy and her siblings, Eggie and Didi, are purebred desert dingoes, increasingly rare in Australia as the native animals interbreed with wild and domestic dogs and are targeted as pests by landholders.

A proposal by a University of NSW scientist to study Sandy's DNA - and, in doing so, test for the first time a hypothesis raised by Darwin in 1868 - is one of five finalists of the World's Most Interesting Genome competition.

A public vote is now open to determine who wins the Pacific Biosciences SMRT Grant, which will enable sequencing of the complete genome of an important animal or plant.

Professor Bill Ballard, who submitted the proposal, said genome sequencing for desert dingoes could help answer significant questions of science and conservation

"There's very few of Darwin's original hypotheses that are yet to be tested," Professor Ballard, from UNSW's School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, said. His theory that there are two steps to the process of domestication - and that, alongside natural selection, they are other forms of evolutionary change - is "one of the most challenging".

[AngryAmish]

1. Aren't the Russian tame foxes testing this same hypothesis?