Australia's weird animal and plant life exists because of the continent's isolation from the rest of the world — meaning, for millions of years, odd creatures like kangaroos, koalas and platypuses came to inhabit their niches on the world's smallest continent or biggest island. Yet the dingo was a weird exception: it's very closely related to dogs and wolves, and thus clearly didn't evolve alone on Australia for millions of years, as the aforementioned animals did. How the dingo got to Australia, and under what circumstances, is still an open question.
Now, a new study brings us closer to understanding where the dingo fits in with other canines. In the recent study, which appears in the journal Science, the authors use genetic evidence to show that it is unlikely the dingo was ever domesticated after arriving in Australia. (Notably, it is unclear if it had been domesticated before.)
