A strange and mysterious extinct dog breed from far southern South America might not have been a dog at all.
The “Fuegian dogs” that lived with the Indigenous peoples of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago were semi-tame culpeos, foxlike animals native to South America, researchers report. The study, published July 14 in the Journal of Zoology, highlights how humans have repeatedly allied with canids.
Fuegian dogs lived alongside the Yámana and Selkʼnam people for probably thousands of years, but the first historical accounts of these creatures came from European visitors to the region in the 18th century. The dogs were described as terrierlike and often a monochromatic grayish-tan with