The Identity of the Dingo I. Morphological Discriminants of
Dingo and Dog Skulls. AE Newsome, LK Corbett and SM Carpenter
Australian Journal of Zoology 28(4) 615 - 625 Earlier studies
have found no differences in thirty blood enzymes in dingoes and
domestic dogs. Canonical analysis on skull characters of 50
dingoes and 43 domestic dogs about the same size as dingoes
achieved clear separation on as few as six characters. The
variability in the sample of domestic dogs was considerable, and
so 100 measurements were taken on adult skulls only. A series of
analyses were used to reduce the number of characters to 70, 30
and 15, and ultimately to a convenient subset of six sufficient
to discriminate between taxa and sexes together. These
measurements were: alveolar distance along lower premolars,
maxillary width, bulla volume, crown width of upper carnassial
tooth, basal length of upper canine and width of nasal bones.
All these characters have functions related to predation. Sexual
dimorphism was marked in dingoes