A few days ago, I posted about the discovery of a New Guinea singing dog in the wild.
Again, here is the photo of the supposed dog:
I am a professional skeptic, and when I hear or read something that just doesn’t sound right, I question it.
Note that I am just questioning it. I am not saying that this is the case.
But could someone provide me evidence that this photo is not a photoshop of a “fawn” kelpie that has been placed in a jungle?
Here’s a fawn kelpie:
This particular color is called “fawn.” It’s actually a liver dilute, which means it has the brown-skinned allele and the dilution factor. This particular one has tan points, but they can come in solid colors, too.
This color is not common in dogs. It just isn’t.
So it would be very unusual for a wild dog from New Guinea to have this coloration.
So I’m skeptical.
The problem with being a skeptic is you’re bound to piss off people who want to believe things.
I don’t care if it actually is what people purport it to be.
I am okay with that finding.
It’s just that no one seems to be questioning the coloration or offering any sort of skeptical inquiry about its origins.
Prove me wrong.
The claim that this is a New Guinea singing dog in the wild is an extraordinary claim.
And as the old saw goes “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
It is possible to photoshop a fawn kelpie into this landscape, and until someone provide evidence that it cannot be a photoshop, then I’m going to continue my skepticism.
Skepticism, in general, is something that is very lacking among the New Guinea singing dog community. If one goes through their literature, virtually every fantastic claim is written down a biological fact.
That’s not good science.
At all.
Can I just say that I think that fawn kelpie is badass looking?
Guess it can’t be a singer, then. The New Guinea Singing Dog is never “badass”.
Thanks for lightening up the discussion!
I agree it looks cool. :)
Here’s another one.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/perfesser_bear/561829410/
It could also be a legitimate photo of a dog that resembles a NGSD. As to it being photoshopped, for the sake of argument I for one am willing to grant that it was taken in situ in PNG. (That is a minor consideration in light of more serious questions outlined below.)
This whole thing begins to smell of Sasquatch science. Are there still wild specimens of NGSDs running around in PNG, I don’t know. But if there are, one should be able to find den sites, scat, hair and remains–all of which can be tested to determine the genetic makeup of the donor(s). If NGSD DNA is as unique as some claim, that should be a pretty straight forward process. If its not, then a lot of what has been said here on the subject becomes moot.
Working the logic backward, we can say unequivocally that the animal in question is canine–almost certainly a dog. We can also say that it resembles a NGSD/Dingo. Finally, we can speculate that it may be a NGSD/Dingo or a cross of same w/ a domestic dog. That’s about as far as we can go with only a photo.
That kelpie does not look like a dingo of any sort, much less a singer. lol. You are not used to looking at dingos. However, even experts can be fooled by crosses and that’s why the test we discussed before. Here is a paper that I believe shows what a “marker” is and how the unique markers were isolated:
http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/content/90/1/108.full.pdf+html
On the coloration of the dog in the photo: there’s a photo online of a washed-out GSD. The background is slightly over-exposed but nothing like the dog. I knew that dog in life and he was very strongly pigmented, so pix can be deceiving. This one shows blown highlights, I think, though I’m no expert on Photography, either, just looks a little over-exposed to me. However, the most usual color for a singer is reddish tan (same as dingo) with white underneath and on the tip of tail. The face bears a dark mask which lightens with age. This dog’s coloration is consistent with singers, generally (see Wikipedia article for pics). I do not believe the singer is any sort of liver or dilute. It has a black nose and dark eyes. If they find a dilute one I will be one surprised person. That would require a major revision of my sense of dingo/singer. It should be noted that this picture was taken in the Indonesian part of New Guinea. There are singers in Europe descended from West Papuan singers, I think. The Taronga Zoo singers, however, came from PNG. How much variation might be displayed across the island is an interesting question, but, still, liver seems outside the realm of possibility. If it turns out to be liver, I’ll consider it a cross.
We are given to understand that this picture was taken far from human habitation and that the Papuan people who accompanied the expedition were surprised to see the dog, although the existence of wild dogs is acknowledged. Furthermore, the photographer is planning to guide a mountain climbing expedition. I checked him out (superficially). He seems to be a business man selling eco-tourism. I believe he was genuinely surprised to see the dog. Who vetted the photo? I dunno. You could ask Tom Wendt if you hadn’t banned him.
Patterson and Gimlin were out riding around looking for squatch when they came across something and they captured it on film.
No one has been able to debunk that film fully, but that’s why you need to be skeptical of photographs, especially now.
The color is just not right.
Who cares? We’re talking about a dog, here, not a mythical ape. The New Guinea dingo is not a cryptic animal. You can see them in zoos. They live in New Guinea but they live, if they are not extinct, in remote areas. That is why sightings are rare. This picture could be a fake, but we’ll find out when somebody you trust goes in there to verify that there are dingos in that area. So, who would you trust?
Actually, it’s not like the sasquatch, it’s more like the thylacine. There are lots of photos of supposed thylacines from the current time, just go to Google Images and type it in. That’s probably a better analogy.
Real or not for time and place, this is clearly a photo of a dog. And the dog is not believed to be extinct. Recent sightings of thylacines never have clear pictures of anything. Even the cryptozoology people are skeptical of those.
There are people who believe the New Guinea Dingo is extinct or almost so in the wild on the basis of few sightings and little evidence of its presence. Koler-Matznick believes it is not extinct based on square miles of undisturbed habitat. (Not an unusual method of estimation.) Either it is or it isn’t. Nobody is arguing that it exists against a tide of ordinary opinion. There is no cryptozoology going on here.
I don’t think you know what cryptozoology is. Cryptozoology also includes the discovery of previously known populations or species that haven’t been seen in a while. The echidna example I gave is a good example of real cryptozoology. Though because cryptozoology isn’t really a science, they wouldn’t call themselves cryptozoology. It’s just simply zoology, trying to document a previously known species that hasn’t been seen in a while.
That’s what’s going on here.
There are lots of reasons to be skeptical about this find. If people don’t like skepticism, then they shouldn’t engage in scientific inquiry. Skepticism is sometimes not nice, but it’s how we avoid error.
One thing little word of caution. I’m getting quite exhausted with your mode of argumentation. It’s exactly how a Fox News presenter would debate, and I really don’t have time to have a discussion with someone who simply won’t listen.
I’ve tried to explain to you my issues. I’ve quoted more current science than you have. You apparently don’t understand why some studies are better than others, and why some researchers are better qualified than others. It’s like the believing the TV weather forecasters who don’t believe in climate change and ignoring all the real climate scientists who do.
There is a reason why the bulk of the scientific community isn’t all worked up about New Guinea singing dogs.
That’s because it’s just a dog. It may be the last vestiges of a landrace, if we define that landrace as being free of Western blood.
But that’s all it is.
Be very skeptical of everything Koler-Matznick says.
I’m telling you, there is a reason why she publishes where she does!
I am sorry. I don’t know specifically what they do or do not require of their membership. I know they require their members not to act counter to the objectives of the Society. I am not about to commit to that. That is all I meant.
The New Guinea Dingo is not a breed, so far. Meaning that there is no selection for conformation or purpose, just breeding so as to preserve the entire genome in so far as that is possible. There may be people trying to breed a domestic singer. I don’t know; it’s just rumor to me. But the conservation bred singers, whether inside or outside the Society breeding program, are not a breed.
Tales of breed origins. What part of a wild-caught pair was taken from New Guinea to Taronga Park Zoo in Australia in the 1950′s don’t you understand? That’s how the captive population started. Simple and modern and verifiable: no romantic bs to it.
Or do you mean the part about isolation for several thousand years in Sahul? No dispute about that, either.
They are dingos: no dispute there either.
They are pure dingo, at least the captive ones are, not village dogs: no dispute there, either.
We can determine the purity of any that are wild caught: no dispute there.
There is nothing amazing about any of this and I’m not buying into something absurd.
I agree in general about anecdotal evidence and special knowledge.The point is that dingos are different. But I know, being a skeptic, you won’t believe anything you read, so I suggested first-hand experience. Nothing special about it. Just challenging you to check things out for yourself.
All types of dog are “different” in some respect from all the others. That’s what enables us to distinguish between them in the first place. Why do you deny this in the case of the dingo? I don’t get it.
In the late 90′s Dr. Robert Bino found scat but saw no actual dogs. They can be elusive, but to compare to sasquatch is just silly. We have singers. We have no squatches. What happened to the hair and scat, I do not know. (Not that there’s any mystery; there’s not.) The problem is that they live at high altitude in a sparsely settled island with huge unexplored areas. If you have the money the NGSD folks would like to talk to you because the problem is just getting there. The upside is that the isolation that makes them so hard to study also tends to protect them from introgression from domestic dog genes.
I have to wonder what gives on this site. If you show me a picture of a St. John’s Water Dog, I don’t question what it is, what color it really is or whether it was actually photographed in Newfoundland. What’s so odd about finding a New Guinea Dog right there in New Guinea where it’s expected to be? Had it been found wandering the streets of Paris it might be different….
But there is an elephant in the room. It has to do with the taxonomic position of the singer. When first brought out of New Guinea it was classified as Canis hallstromi, its own species. Conserving a species is expected. Conserving sub-species or a variety is a bit dicey. Scottie knows this, as it is true in the USA, too. Defining what it is you are trying to conserve, then justifying the money spent is a problem. (That’s where this discussion started, too, singer v echidna, remember?)
Somewhere along the line, the singer was demoted and federal law required special treatment for it in the zoos. In the 90′s the zoos got rid of them, which is why there are so many around and why breeding programs are complex, as people try to document dogs and conservation breed (by the numbers – no selection allowed.)
Dr. I Lehr Brisbin obtained zoo stock, as did Don Ehrlich. Dr. Brisbin gave stock to Jan Koler-Matznick for study. She has done everything in her power to demonstrate that the singer is different, in many ways, from the domestic dog, and so is worthy of conservation. She has attempted to support the idea that singer really is a separate species. It is this specialness, minutely described for the sake of conservation, and that Scottie finds intolerable.
It boggles my mind that the one who laments the passing of the St.John’s Water Dog would wish the same on the singer. My neighbor’s pit bull is big and black with a white spot on her chest. She has lab ears and adores the water. But she can’t comprehend retrieving and she lacks webbed feet. She looks, to me, like the sorry end of the St. John’s Water Dog. Don’t tell me crossbreeding does not matter. It may or may not, depending….
I can’t comment on taxonomy. I’m not a biologist. But it is clear to anyone who owns one that the singer is different from any domestic dog. Simple observation by simple people will tell you that much.
Finally, the singer community includes all sorts of people, people who disagree with one another quite frequently. I, for one, am tired of being labeled as someone who is looking for something to believe in or as someone who is gullible, hysterical, or whatever. I am not a NGSDCS member. They have carefully designed goals and programs which I fear might not allow posting here by the membership. But I respect them and go to their group with questions. Jan is writing a book. Can’t wait. I’ve been posting about singers for only 2 years. Jan has several detractors, such as Scottie, with animosities that go back years. I do not understand, but I know you have to bear these things in mind whenever you read about singers. Wikipedia? GTO the discussion and find out who is writing the article at this time. It’s like that. Best thing is to own a singer. That way you have your own ideas and your own experience to compare to whatever you read.
Subjective and anecdotal evidence and evidence that requires special knowledge (“Just own one”) are not evidence that I can use.
Sorry play again.
I want actually evidence that this is not hoax. I don’t need twelve or fifteen paragraphs of stuff like this.
To me, this almost the equivalent of the Patterson Film, if you know what that is…
Kelpies actually do have some dingo in them, but because certain states in Australia banned dingo ownership, they simply lied about what was in them.
I don’t think you know the rules of evidence. Anecdotal evidence cannot be used. Photographic evidence is interesting, but if there is something off, it must be question. Evidence that requires special knowledge (like owning a certain dog or having a personal relationship with Jesus) are not valid pieces of evidence.
I’m going to save you a bunch of time, but until you find someone who can actually verify for me that this isn’t a hoax, then I’m going to be skeptical.
I know these people don’t like me.
Very simple reason: They allow people who cannot think skeptically to write their literature.
Every single claim they make is treated as if it were biological fact.
I don’t think they even understand that “genetic marker” is essentially meaningless term. You and I have genetic marker that are different, but we have far fewer differences than chimps do. The dingo-type dogs, when a large sample of their DNA is examined, don’t fit this “very unique” species or subspecies paradigm. They fit very nicely within the other East Asian dogs. The Japanese have had dogs that have lived feral and domestic existences. One of the problems with trying to understand the exact taxonomic position of Japan’s extinct wolves is that Japan had a lot of feral dogs that were also mixing with the wolves, which makes things very hard to discern.
Like the singing dogs, they are insular dogs, and they are unique landraces to their respective regions. They can also be a PIA to own, and I was just shown a photo of a shiba inu climbing a tree. Does that mean that they are all a new species or subspecies?
Of course not.
And no one is willing to put any of this into perspective.
They are still trying to force Hallstrom’s dog into a unique species, which means it will be listed as critically endangered. It will have to be kept “pure,” which actually will be a death sentence for them.
It’s really the same old wolfaboo nonsense just with a jungle dog. You may not be aware, but just about every island int he Indo-Pacific region has a dog like this. And all sorts of claims are made about them.
Jan doesn’t have several detractors.
Virtually everyone who has studied dog origins thinks she’s full of crap.
She’s not taken seriously anywhere, except in Singertown.
Dogs are a subset of wolves. Every study shows this, including the genome-wide analyses.
There is a debate about where dogs originated, but it is very unlikely that they originated from a single domestication event in Southern China. It simply doesn’t fit the archaeological evidence about when dogs appeared in East Asia, and it doesn’t fit the genome-wide analysis at all.
Almost everything you read about New Guinea singing dogs reminds me of Sasquatch science or creationism or crap you’d read about scientific findings in North Korea.
Of course, they aren’t unique.
Dog people are unusually prone to belief-based hokum and lore, and the sad thing is when you ask the for simple evidence for the claims, you get all the bad pieces of evidence thrown at you.
Which tells you they have very little.
Actually, the singer stuff I’ve read reminds me of ‘breed stories.’ This breed does ‘this,’ and it’s unique. No, my dogs will do ‘this’, so your breed is not unique. Or things that are just plain wrong, like pivoting hip joints in Afghans (there is only one pivot joint in a dog, and it ain’t the hips), or magic speshul shoulder joints in Lundehunds that are totally different than other dogs. Mythology.
LOL whenever a police car, and ambulance, or anything else with a siren goes past my house, I have EKYSGSDs ;-p. That was especially true when I had the wolf hybrids – my “pack” was a veritable choir at times :-D.
I don`t know a lot about Singers, and have no axe to grind there.
But I do know a bit about photography, and about botany.
I don`t think the photo has been photoshopped. And I don`t think you can ever trust colour in photography…not enough to make an identification from it. At Kew, when ac new species is identified it is always defined by a painting, never a photograph, for this reason. The artist can look at the specimen and match colours exactly….
BUT
The landscape in which the dog is posing is so nondescript – a few ferns, a few shrubs – that it could be absolutely anywhere. There is nothing at all there that I can see that restricts it definitively to New Guinea. I could go out into the wood and pose a dog in a very similar background. So this could be a pet Singer photographed at home, for all I know. I couldn`t take it as evidence on ts own,
Elizabeth
Thank you.What I’ve read is that this photo has been shown to people familiar with the flora of New Guinea. They’ve said the vegetation is consistent with the vegetation of New Guinea. I take that to mean that the picture was not taken in, say, California! Thanks for the info about paintings vs photos. I’m not a biologist. I did not know that.
I`m sure the vegetation is consistent with the fora of New Guinea….and with a lot of other places as well. There is nothing locale-specific there.
Elizabeth
I doubt it’s photoshopped, but there’s nothing to say a feral/village dog didn’t cross their path lower down and decided to tag along with them with or without the expedition’s knowledge. Dogs in general are curious like that. Then they see it foraging about while it keeps a discrete distance and voila, instant NGSD in the wild. I’m not saying that’s what happened, but it’s as within the bounds of possibility, if not more likely than that being a pure blooded wild NGSD with self coloured pigmentation. If it is a trick of the light, how come they watched this dog for some time yet couldn’t get a better photo?
I have, past and present, three Oriental breeds that have an amazing amount of folklore built around them that is mostly fairy tales. I’m well versed in money and ego creating paper tigers when it comes to breed histories, so excuse me for having a jaded and skeptical eye.
OK, point by point. It’s difficult to argue in this format. Too many points coming too quickly. Anyway:
The comparison to Sasquatch is ludicrous. Sasquatch does not exist. The New Guinea Dingo does exist. It is not a cryptic animal. You can see them in zoos.
It’s a dog breed in the West, but whether truly feral singing dogs that are free of foreign blood still exist in New Guinea is a good question.
This is what happens when you buy into the absurdities of breed ‘conservationists.’ You wind up believing things that probably aren’t true, but sound amazing, so why not believe it?
Of course, when a skeptic comes around and asks for really good evidence, and you don’t have any, then you look like a fool.
For their club to tell their members not to comment on this blog speaks volumes about their willingness to deal with skeptics.
I am sorry. I don’t know specifically what they do or do not require of their membership. I know they require their members not to act counter to the objectives of the Society. I am not about to commit to that. That is all I meant.
The New Guinea Dingo is not a breed, so far. Meaning that there is no selection for conformation or purpose, just breeding so as to preserve the entire genome in so far as that is possible. There may be people trying to breed a domestic singer. I don’t know; it’s just rumor to me. But the conservation bred singers, whether inside or outside the Society breeding program, are not a breed.
Tales of breed origins. What part of a wild-caught pair was taken from New Guinea to Taronga Park Zoo in Australia in the 1950′s don’t you understand? That’s how the captive population started. Simple and modern and verifiable: no romantic bs to it.
Or do you mean the part about isolation for several thousand years in Sahul? No dispute about that, either.
They are dingos: no dispute there either.
They are pure dingo, at least the captive ones are, not village dogs: no dispute there, either.
We can determine the purity of any that are wild caught: no dispute there.
There is nothing amazing about any of this and I’m not buying into something absurd.
I agree in general about anecdotal evidence and special knowledge.The point is that dingos are different. But I know, being a skeptic, you won’t believe anything you read, so I suggested first-hand experience. Nothing special about it. Just challenging you to check things out for yourself.
All types of dog are “different” in some respect from all the others. That’s what enables us to distinguish between them in the first place. Why do you deny this in the case of the dingo? I don’t get it.
“bearcoatpei
I doubt it’s photoshopped, but there’s nothing to say a feral/village dog didn’t cross their path lower down and decided to tag along with them with or without the expedition’s knowledge”
According to some people it couldn’t been a village dog as they aren’t found in those elevations.
I think a dog could do fine in such environment. Saya can run up and down steep hills, climb fallen trees.
So it could be possible a village dog had followed them.
It could have had singer blood in it so it had some looks to it.
It could be not that and a actual singer.
I love dingo breed and New guinea singer breed, but I do think retrieverman has some rights to be skeptic. Skeptics are good to have around sometimes..
New guinea dingo has better sound to it because Australian dingoes makes same howling noise as singers.
So should Australian dingo be named Australian singers?
Here’s a Australian dingo howling does sound sorta similar.
Why not question it?
Just a little point: the New Guinea Singing Dog is not a breed. A breed is a breeding population descended from a small number of founders and then selectively bred by man to some standard or for some purpose. The dingos (defined morphologically) are distributed in Thailand, one island in Indonesia, AU and New Guinea. Those in AU and New Guinea are probably from a small number of founders. That is, they have a small number of mtDNA lines. (There could have been a lot of dogs from the same mtDNA lines or a small number from many lines almost all of which have been lost, but those possibilities are Improbable.) We don’t know how domesticated (meaning genetically changed by association with man) they were on arrival. What we do know is that they got away from man and were subsequently on their own and subjected to natural selection. So, while they may meet the small number of founders criterion, they fail as regards artificial selection. Therefore they are not a breed.
They were a population of dogs that were domesticated enough and selectively bred for a purpose enough at one time otherwise they would have been no use at all to the aboriginal people who first colonised those islands. And the ones in captivity now are a breed by every criteria you mention, i.e. a breeding population selectively bred for the purpose of looking/acting like what their owner’s ideal of a NGSD is. That’s a bit of a cruel irony, really.
NGSDs are a type of Dingo, which in turn is one of, if not the earliest known breeds of dog. Or type of proto dog/wolf set on it’s own evolutionary path in symbiosis with the upper paleolith/neolithic man of the general area of Southeast Asia and Australia if not wider until the Europeans came barelling in with their new fangled dog breeds, if you want to play semantics. And even if you take away the mention of dog breed, it still stands. If that’s your particular chosen selection of the canis lupus genome that fires your imagination, there will be people spreading all sorts of folklore to suit whatever their agenda is, be that good, bad or ugly… ooh, ending on a bad pun there. Be grateful I didn’t mention European wild rabbits as an analogy to dogs, because I was going to end on “but there’s no need to split hares” boom boom!
Sorry I didn’t see this before. It’s not a breed. A breed must be purpose bred, that is, bred to a standard of conformation or performance. Conservation breeding deliberately picks unrelated individuals as much as possible and without respect to height or weight or speed or temperament or what-have-you. Obvious flaws are disqualified from breeding because genetic flaws can easily become very common in a small population. The method is not perfect. For example some have alleged that there is unconscious selection. Oh, well, it’s the best we can do till new blood comes along. So far, the New Guinea Dingo is doing pretty well in captivity.
In the West, it is a breed. You’re not listening. I can’t have a discussion if you don’t listen. Border collies are a breed, and they allow in new blood on a somewhat regular basis. There is no new blood in singing dogs, except for a few exception that I’ve seen hinted at though not confirmed.
Yep. Big bone of contention. You are right on all counts, IMO. I refuse to argue about what “domesticated” and “feral” mean. Here’s what we know for certain: man took dingo to Sahul. Dingo was probably domesticated at the time. (Contenders will attempt to qualify as “partially domesticated”, “semi-domesticated”, “tame”, or even “wild”. Want to share your canoe with a “wild” animal? I don’t. That argument was shouted down. Semi- or whatever? Sure. Fact is I don’t care.)
Then dingo got away from man and began an independent existence. (Contenders will attempt to qualify this, too, as Partial- or Semi-. Once again I plead no contest; I just don’t care.
OK, independent existence subject to Natural Selection. Now that is the crux. And about that there is no contention. Aboriginal people would catch and use them, same as we have, but did not deliberately breed them. And even if they had, how many generations do you suppose it would take for dingo to liberate himself again if he was ever even confined? As it was, the breeding population was far-flung, although 3 varieties have been identified in AU. But Ho-Hum. We have here a dog that was subject to natural selection for several thousand years. Isn’t that interesting?
Most of the contention has to do with meeting requirements for conservation. And it is Very Tedious, IMO.
It is a breed because now there are people in the West who a trying to keep captive populations “pure,” which is the definition of a breed. Historically, it was a landrace.
I’m using that term breed because that’s what all these “conservationists” are actually doing.
I agree that New Guinea Dingo sounds better than singing dog. It’s a howl at any rate. As long as it doesn’t end up getting renamed New Guinea Echidna Eater, all will be well – he-he!
I think he’s gone way further than skepticism. He’s trying to paint people who are interested in singers as wild-eyed fanatics. First he called into question the authenticity of the picture. Then he decided the picture might be real but the dog is fake (wrong color). Something has to be fake – not sure what. Then he challenged the dingo genetic purity test which has nothing to do with the picture. And then came out against Koler-Matznick who has nothing to do with the picture. Then announced that anyone who is associated with singers is indulging in Sasquatch Science. This is a real live dog we are talking about, not a mythical ape. But he acknowledges that when he announces that purity (forget the liver kelpie, now), purity will be the singer”s undoing. The fun never stops.
Of course dingos howl. I don’t know who has the more melodious howl, or more scientifically, how these howls sound to electronic sound recording devices. When I bought my dog he was billed as Canis hallstromi (a different species then) and called the New Guinea Wild Dog, which was known to bea dingo. Several decades later, when I heard “singing dog” I thought it sounded pretty hokey. But these names come down to us.
I suppose a dog could have tagged along (if you think that native guides and porters don’t notice that there’s a dog tagging along), but why is that more probable than seeing a dog right where you’d expect it and that the photo is genuine? Skepticism does not work too well if you have to come up with improbable scenarios to defend it!
Anyway, glad you like dingos, AU and New Guinea. Are you in the USA or Canada?
I am just offering skepticism.
If you’d like me to go through a critique of all the things these people say, I’d gladly do it, but I can’t do it in the comments here.
I’m not giving you improbably scenarios. I’m giving you a scenario that might not be as nice, but one that has to be considered.
If you don’t want to consider it, then you’d rather believe.
I have no use for belief, especially if it could be in error.
You can only use what is valid and accurate.
You need to take some classes in logic and the philosophy of science before you start trying to argue with me or anyone else on these issues.
I’m just applying the same standards to these dogs that I would apply to salukis or basenjis or “Pharaoh hounds.”
Dog people in generally don’t like skepticism. They like belief.
I don’t give a rat’s ass about belief.
If it’s poppycock, it ought to be rejected.
If I was going to cut to the chase on the skepticism thing, I’d point out that the person who documented this sighting is someone with a vested interest in seeing these dogs just where it would make a fanstastic story and free publicity for a tourist guide running and adventure holiday company. I’m not saying if it’s a genuine sighting or not as there’s no concrete proof either way, but stranger things have happened both on genuine sighting and elaborate hoaxes.
Also, I think you’re taking any questions asked here as a personal attack because you are quite commendably emotionally involved/invested in these dogs (like we all are with our chosen breeds). I don’t think anybody here is trying to character assassinate the NGSD out of existence. And when that happens, it’s time for me at least to call it a day as it’s turned into an argument rather than a debate.
KK, what “he” is doing is practicing standard scientific procedure. A hypothesis must be tested and challenged before it can be validated.
Scenario:
Person A proposes a hypothesis.
Person B challenges that hypothesis saying there is insufficient evidence to validate same. (Note: ideally, Persons A & B would be one and the same, critically testing her hypothesis before presenting it to her peers.)
Person A must then present her best evidence (not proof*) and argue a logical progression from that evidence. (If that evidence and/or logic is specious and doesn’t appear to hold water, the hypothesis will die a still birth and never be published.)
If person B cannot come up with more compelling evidence that “disproves”* the hypothesis AND other researchers independently come up with the same results as person A, using all available evidence, then the hypothesis will probably be accepted as the most likely set of circumstances–at least until later and better evidence is discovered, at which point the dance starts all over again.
We can see this process to some extent even with the theory of evolution. Although Darwin is rightly credited with coming up with the comprehensive system that we call Evolutionary Theory, many of his original postulates have since been disproven. His overall theory is still good, but the specifics have been rearranged to deal with later discoveries.
What I see coming from the Singer community appears to be creative thinking–an essential process for coming up with hypotheses. But creative thinking is an intuitive, right-brain process** not a reasoned, left-brain one. Thats where critical thinking comes in–enter the skeptic. (Note: In order to make scientific progress, both modes of thinking are necessary.)
Please take the time to view the Feynman video, he says all this much better than I ever could.
(*Proof is something best relegated to formal logic, mathematics and hard liquor. An hypothesis can be, and if at all possible, will be disproven by others however.)
(**I myself am highly intuitive by nature and had to learn how to apply critical thought to my theories. In my case, I learned by having my reports returned time and time again by editors who were paid to apply critical review techniques to our technical papers. Its a hard way to learn and very humbling.)
Darn video above didn’t save the location it showed the dingo howling.. anyways here is a video that shows it.
I don’t think that the photo looks photoshopped; it looks like an overexposed photo shot in bright daylight & that’s why the dog’s coloring looks washed-out. I’ve had photos of dark-pigmented dogs turn out the same way. Whether it’s a wild NGSD is the question & without more evidence than an overexposed photo, that question cannot yet be answered. I wouldn’t compare to Sasquatch but rather to eastern puma: there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence but precious little concrete evidence that can be objectively quantified. Or maybe comparison with “red wolf” is more appropriate, given that there are questions as to whether this animal is a true species, a subspecies, a landrace, or a hybrid. The DNA says they are the same species as domestic dogs & domestic dogs are the same species as wolf. As I’ve said before, I don’t think that’s an entirely satisfactory conclusion, but unless the term “species” is redefined in some way to allow rather obscure behavioral differences to override quantifiable DNA evidence, I think we have to go with that. Otherwise, where do you draw the lines?
NGSD = Dingo = Domestic Dog = Wolf
Thank you for seeing the light, so to speak.
The eastern puma has not been photo’d or captured, yet, at least not recently. The singer is real, but nobody knows how many there are. Hope I’m right about the dates, but last capture was in the ’70′s, last photo was in the ’80′s. The red wolf is a hybrid. The singer is not. No one alleges that it has been hybridized.
As to its taxonomic status, I don’t go there because I am not qualified. (I believe it’s an isolated breeding population that has been subjected long-term to natural, not artificial, selection. That’s as far as I go.) But who is qualified and probably willing to answer your question is I Lehr Brisbin PhD. He is a biologist. He can be found on Yahoo on the primitiveandaboriginaldog group. I know that the singer is not, today, its own species. However, the idea is not as outlandish as Scottie would have you believe, IMO. When they were first brought out of NG to AU in the 1950′s they were assigned their own species, Canis hallstromi. That lasted until the late 60′s (hope I’ve got the date right.) Last I heard it was C.lupus dingo New Guinea. Hope I got that right. About a year ago, the author of the Wikipedia article was not sure! So, Dr. Brisbin would be your best bet.
I think a lot of that “primitive dog” stuff has to be taken with a grain of salt. Go this link: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/05/15/1203005109
If these dogs are so unique, why on earth don’t they appear in all the genetic and behavioral studies?
I think the people who are actually publishing in the field can tell that there is a lot of crap about singing dogs passing about, so they stay out of it.
I don’t know if you took my point, KK, about whether the various dingos are species, subspecies, etc. Until quite recently I was of the opinion that dingos, domestic dogs, Algonquin wolves, gray wolves, red wolves, coyotes, and NGSDs are each a separate species, some having subspecies within the larger species grouping, but closely enough related that, largely due to human intervention, intergression and fertile hybrids occur, especially at the edges of their individual ranges, or where people have lived for several millennia. While I still like that idea best (it just feels right, intuitively), the DNA evidence, taken across the entire genome, does not support it. I don’t think that we know nearly as much about DNA as we think we do, and future discoveries may change our perception of how DNA defines relationship. But, unless the whole concept of what a “species” is is completely scrapped, and a new definition of just what constitutes a “species” is put into place, we have to go with what the DNA tells us. And the DNA tells us that NGSDs are dingos are dogs are wolves.
I am reminded of people who claim unique status for “Carolina dogs”. I have to chuckle a little at that, because that type of feral dog is very, very common in the Appalachians. Most of them have some old-fashioned farm collie, cur, feist, and hound ancestry. They are like most random-bred dogs anywhere in the world: after several generations: most of them are more-or-less dingo-like in appearance and character. The Carolina dogs are part of a general landrace that is common in the Southeast, but some people have begun breeding them selectively to try to “save” them. I think that whether one calls them a landrace or a breed is a matter of semantics; whether dogs are selectively bred by people, or develop into a landrace due to isolation, a breed is a breed.
That’s not to say that I don’t think NGSDs are beautiful, unique animals. And if a truly wild population is confirmed, I hope that they will be closely studied and protected, because when land is set aside to protect large, charismatic carnivores, other species benefit as well.
I would agree about the dog’s coloration; too many variables possibly affecting the photograph. From this single photo it is not possible to state whether the dog has liver, or black, skin coloration. It might or might not be a dilute coat color (although the gene that dilutes black or liver hair pigmentation appears not to affect yellow/red hair pigment.) And even dogs with genetically black skin pigment vary considerably, and can “fade” to what appears to be brown or even pink on nose and eyerims– I’ve seen many such in Golden Retrievers.
I’ll ride on K’s coattails on this w/ one proviso. I have no axe to grind in the overall Singer debate. What I’m arguing here is the available evidence and critical processing not the fact of the dog’s (or its species) taxonomy. I said “Sasquatch Science’ not Sasquatch–what that means is that everything we “know” about this one particular dog is anecdotal but is being used as though it was empirical. Due to circumstances beyond their control, the guide, photographer, and author have not one iota of actual physical evidence (photography can indeed be unintentionally misleading) to be tested by themselves, the Singer community, or skeptics, much less by a disinterested 3rd party.
In addition, what we “know” about the DNA of NGSD’s as a whole seems to be based on mtDNA only (at least that’s all I can find in free on-line sources.) That is not sufficient to the task. Case in point: my mtDNA tells me absolutely nothing about my paternal ancestry and primarily reflects remote (as in prehistoric) ancestors, not what may have transpired in more recent times. Conversely, my Y-DNA tells me nothing about my maternal ancestry and is primarily constrained to my historical ancestry.
DNA (full autosomal, Y (STRS vice SNPs), and mtDNA) is the empirical evidence that would constitute a first step towards settling the issues (there are actually at least two being argued here.) Juxtaposing the results of that DNA’s configuration w/ that of the dog/wolf genome in a graphic display for all to see and assimilate would be the next step. Until this is done arguments like this will continue–as has happened w/ the Sasquatch–to no fruitful end. Though stimulating, its ultimately an exercise in futility!
There are forensic photo analysts whose job includes being able to look at digital photographs at the pixel level and determined if an image has been tampered with. Not completely 100% reliable, though, and no doubt, not cheap.
It occurs to me that this might be a good place for all involved in these discussions to watch Richard Feynman’s lecture on scientific method. You can see it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw
As someone who does photoshop, I don’t think its photoshopped. Alot of the artifacts that people keep trying to say “MUST mean its photoshopped” are COMMONLY found in normal pictures, its just when they’re taken up close those same artifacts don’t look so bad so no one notices. Besides if it was a pro job the chances of a pro leaving such artifacts is extremely unlikely.
As for whether its a pure Singer, a village dog, or a cross there-of, there’s no way to prove one way or other till it, or another dog nearby, are captured and DNA tested (and yes, there is DNA testing that can determine Singer from Dingo from crossed with domesticated dog). As someone who owns a Singer I find it highly fascinating and sincerely hope that this’ll prompt folks to put together the type of expedition required to actually look into this properly…..
Dear Retriever Man,
In a follow-up reply post about the picture of a “wild New Guinea singing dog” you said: “Skepticism, in general, is something that is very lacking among the New Guinea singing dog community. If one goes through their literature, virtually every fantastic claim is written down a biological fact.
That’s not good science.”
You also said: “Be very skeptical of everything Koler-Matznick says. I’m telling you there is a reason why she publishes where she does.”
Yes, indeed, there IS a reason we have published the Singer papers where we have: The Journal of Zoology, London; Australian Journal of Mammalogy; Zoo Biology; Interaction Studies Special Issue: Social Animal Cognition. We chose well-respected, peer-reviewed journals for our Singer research.
While some interested in the New Guinea dingo, especially some of those who promote them as household pets, do lack critical thinking skills, there are many of us, including the scientists who belong to the New Guinea Singing Dog Conservation Society, who have studied them carefully.
I have been unable to authenticate the new picture of a supposed wild Singer, because the only copies available to me are too low in resolution to determine if it is photo shopped. I agree that the dilute color without eumelanin would be extremely unusual. The dog’s color is probably not merely due to the lighting or exposure as the surrounding plants and rocks in the picture have normal color.
From your discounting of ID by genetic markers are, it seems you are not aware that they can indeed be used to differentiate dingoes (AU and NG) from all other dogs so far tested. Dr. Alan Wilton at Univ. NSW, AU, developed a marker test using 20 microsatellite markers, some of which are “private” and only present in dingoes, some of which are present in both dingoes and domestic dogs (but very rare in domestic dogs), in order to distinguish pure from hybrid AU dingoes. The Singers have the same dingo-specific markers. Currently Dr. Adam Boyko at Cornell is sequencing the entire Singer genome and soon the first compete wolf genome will be published, so in the not-too-distant future we will have a more accurate account of the similarities between dogs, dingoes and wolves.
Re. my hypothesis about the origin of the dog which you ridiculed: While there are certainly many of those who read my dog origin paper (which was also published in a peer-reviewed journal), do not agree with my dog origin hypothesis, there are an equal number of careful thinkers who at least accept the hypothesis as “possible.” There are some, such as canid paleontologist Dr. Ron Nowak, who agree that the dog is most likely not a direct descendant of Canis lupus but rather a sister species. The only strong evidence for the dog being a C. lupus descendant is their extremely close genetic relatedness. But every canid geneticist I have asked to date – including Dr. Robert Wayne, Dr. Adam Boyko, Dr. Ben Sacks, and Dr. Peter Savolainen – have admitted that this similarity could be due to the dog and wolf having a recent common ancestor. They don’t necessarily believe this, but admit the possibility.
Janice Koler-Matznick
My take on dog taxonomy is very simple:
If you went back to that common ancestor between modern wolves and dogs and somehow came across it, you would have to call it a wolf because it would look like a wolf with maybe some minor differences in morphology. The same thing would happen if we looked for archaic Homo sapiens. That’s a much better analogy for dogs and wolves than it is trying to say that dogs are as different as humans and chimps or leopards and jaguars.
The bulk of the evidence shows that dogs are most genetically similar to Middle Eastern wolves. It doesn’t necessarily mean that domestication happened there.
It just means that modern dogs are much more similar to those wolves than the big game hunting wolves from northern Eurasia and North America.
Those wolves are much more similar to dingo-type dogs in terms of size– the “small dog gene” is very similar to a small wolf gene that appears in Arabian wolves and the dwarfism mutation that exists in so many breeds also has a Middle Eastern origin.
I don’t think anybody can argue w/ Dr. Wilton’s results–he looks to have been batting a thousand when identifying the specimens by using specific genetic “markers”. He could indeed genetically differentiate “pure” Dingos from those w/ an intromission of western genes. (One can do the same w/ ethnic Finns or Basques as compared to Europeans overall, but to date nobody has claimed that they are separate species.)
I think that its also acceptable to all that genetic isolation due to geography is a valid form of speciation–over time. I suspect that if the various forms of Dingo had continued in geographic isolation for say another 100,000y, they might very well be unable to successfully breed w/ other canids, ala Lycaon.
What is at issue (and yes its clear that you realize this–sorry for preaching to the choir) is whether there is enough data on the Dingo/NGSD genome to make any serious claims as to its position in overall canine taxonomy. I think its fair to say that we all look forward w/ great anticipation to the publication of the genome characterizations that you mentioned. What will be even more interesting is if we can (or cannot) place dingos on the wheel featured here in the past (see “New genome-wide study sheds light on dog breed relationships”, posted 18 Oct 2011), as well as how/where Dingos fit on a cladogram of canids overall.
I’m not sure that the color is as rare as you think. “isabella” Dobermans are this color. There’s some evidence that such colors result in health issues. Secondly, a photo doesn’t prove that 1. the dog is a New Guinea singing dog, 2. that if it is, it’s wild and 3. that the dog doesn’t have “impurities”. On the other hand, the issue of “impurities” — so what? The animal apparently fills a cultural and historical role and if it has unique characteristics that can be preserved, why be fussed about a dash of GSD or Kelpie? After all, haven’t there been numerous blogs about avoiding inbreeding issues or too small a gene pool? And so what if it is a breed (that is, the dogs were originally brought to NG by people and the existing animals are decended from domestic dogs). To me, it’s just as important to preserve a rare historical breed of sheep as it is to preserve a rare race of tiger. Obviously tigers as a whole are endangered, but it would be just as sad if all sheep disappeared as if all tigers did. If a rare race disappears, the species is still there, but one has lost genetic diversity and unique historical information — and that applies just as much to a domestic as to “wild” animals.
I can’t say anything about that picture being photoshopped or not, neither can I say that dog looks like kelpie or dingo or NGSD or shiba inu or what ever… But I got caught up with the fawn-thing.
Let’s imagine for a moment that it is a real photo of a real dog, and entertain the thought that it could be a NGSD.
The picture alone of course is not quite enough to determine the dog’s color. But I think this dog doesn’t have to be isabella/fawn, he could “just” be liver/brown and sable. Brown tipping on yellow hair creates a “dull” coloration (somewhat similar to fawn) in comparison to the “sharpness” of a black and sable. Some chesapeake bay retrievers for example are brown and sable. Sable of course is a regular color in NGSDs. I agree that brown colour would probably indicate domestic dogs’ influence somewhere in the breeding of this dog.
So, to claim that this is a FAWN New Guinea singing dog in the wild is indeed an extraordinary claim. The claim that this is a brown sable NGSD in the wild, is maybe unlikely as well, but more plausible than fawn. At least a brown and sable “NGSDish dog” could be a result of lesser foreign influence (maybe just one breeding with a brown dog somewhere in the past?) than a fawn NGSD-mix (maybe a rather resent breeding with a fawn dog, and indeed, fawn is way more rare colour in domestic dogs than just brown).
And again, this is a low resolution, overexposed photo. Maybe the dog in the picture actually has a black nose and it just appears to be brown.
________________________
More importantly, I’d like to ask if anyone else spotted the whitish apeman with almondshaped eyes looming in the shadows behind the dog?!
[I know there are fawn (and sable) chesapeake bay retrievers as well...:) I still think this could be an overexposed picture of a brown and sable dog.]