New Guinea Singing Dog

Aptly named for its place of birth, the New Guinea Singing Dog (NGSD) is a medium-sized canine with a graceful gait, feline-like agility, impeccable hunting skills, and an impressive singing voice. Also known as New Guinea Highland Dogs or "Singers", DNA testing has revealed these wily dogs are cousins of the Australian Dingo. Fossil records indicate that they have been around for over 6,000 years. Believed to have been extinct in the wild since the 1970s, recent studies found that there is still a small population of wild Singers living high up in the mountains of Papua New Guinea. In 2018, a research team located 15 of these wild dogs and took blood samples to compare to domesticated NGSD. Results revealed very close genetic sequences between the two. While their numbers are still low and they are considered a threatened breed, the findings prove that there are Singers surviving in the wild.