Fuegian dog

Fuegian dog
Conservation status
Domesticated
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Canidae
Genus:	Lycalopex
Species:	L.culpaeus
Binomial name
Lycalopex culpaeus

The Fuegian dog (Spanish: perro yagán, perro fueguino), also known as the Yaghan dog, is an extinct domesticated canid. It was a domesticated form of the culpeo, Lycalopex culpaeus, unlike other domesticated canids – dogs, domesticated from the gray wolf Canis lupus, and the domesticated fox, from the red fox Vulpes vulpes.

There are very few surviving specimens of Fuegian dog. These include one in the Museo Salesiano Maggiorino Borgatello in Chile, and another in the Fagnano Regional Museum in Tierra del Fuego.^[1]

Characteristics

Fuegian dogs had erect ears, sharp snout and a thick tail, tawny colored or entirely white. Surviving images show them to be a similar size to the wild culpeo, which weighs 5 to 13.5 kg (11 to 30 lb), or roughly the size of a Shetland Sheepdog. Gauchos called Fuegian dogs "maned dogs" because of their resemblance to the maned wolf. Lucas Bridges described the Fuegian dog as "a stunted cross between an Alsatian police dog and a wolf".^[2]

It was described by Captain Martial, who headed the 1883 scientific expedition to Cape Horn, as “ugly, with long tawny hair and a sharp snout, it looks quite like a fox".^[3]

Behaviour

Although the Fuegian dog's distribution corresponded with that of the Yaghan people, individual animals were not loyal to their human owners. Julius Popper pointed out the canid's lack of loyalty: "I never saw them, no matter how large their number, take an aggressive attitude or defend their masters when these were in danger".^[4]

Uses

Fuegian dogs were not used to hunt guanaco. However, they might have been useful for hunting otters.^[5] The dogs were also useful to humans in that they would gather around their owners to keep them warm. This was noted by Julius Popper:"the dogs placed themselves in a group around the small Onas, taking the shape of a kind of wrapping […] my opinion is that the Fuegian dogs are only useful to complete the defective garment of the Indian, or better, as the Ona’s heating furniture".

Extermination

In 1919, when Salesian missionary Martin Gusinde visited the Yaghans, he noticed their dogs were gone. The Fuegian dogs were exterminated because they "were dangerous to men and cattle”. Their fierce nature was also noted by Thomas Bridges in the 1880s, who wrote that they attacked his Mission’s goats.^[6]

Fuegian dog (lower image)

References