Dingo
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Dingo
Mammal
Australia's wild dog, a lean, golden-coated predator of the outback whose exact classification is debated — it sits somewhere between a wild species and an ancient domestic dog.
Name Story
Canis familiaris dingo
means “The dog called 'dingu'”
What does its name mean?
- Canis — dogLatin
- dingo — dogdingu, the word for dog in Dharug, an Aboriginal Australian language
Not every scientific name comes from Latin or Greek: 'dingo' keeps the word 'dingu' from the Dharug people of the Sydney region, written down by early settlers over two hundred years ago — though scientists still debate exactly where the dingo fits in the dog family.