Dingo

The dingo is Australia's own wild dog. It has a sandy, golden-ginger coat, pointy ears, and a bushy tail, and it often has white paws that look like little socks. Dingoes have lived across Australia for thousands of years and feel right at home in the wide outback.

Dingoes are closely related to pet dogs and wolves, and scientists are still friendly-arguing about exactly how to group them. Some call the dingo its own special kind of animal, while others count it as a type of dog. Whatever we call it, the dingo is a clever wild cousin of the dog you might have at home.

Dingoes are carnivores, which means they mostly eat other animals. A lot of their meals are small creatures like rabbits and rats, but a family of dingoes can also work together as a team to follow bigger animals such as kangaroos. They are smart hunters and often go looking for food in the cooler evening and early morning.

Baby dingoes are called pups. A dingo family is usually a mother, a father, and their pups growing up together. Many dingoes also live alone or in pairs, roaming across a big patch of land they think of as home.

Dingoes have a special voice. They often howl more than they bark like a pet dog, and that long, musical howl helps family members find one another across the open land. Dingoes are also agile climbers, using their flexible bodies to move through rocky and wooded country.

There are still many dingoes in Australia, but keeping the true, pure dingo family lines safe can be tricky, because dingoes sometimes have pups with pet dogs. Special parks protect wild dingoes, and people who study them are finding ways to help the dingo stay just as it has always been.