Fw: MORE on Line breeding vs hybridization/wild dogs.

From: "Julius Boos" ju-bo at email.msn.com> on 2001.06.30 at 01:11:39(6918) -----Original Message----- To: Multiple recipients of list AROID-L Date: Thursday, June 28, 2001 11:57 AM Subject: Re: Line breeding vs hybridization Dear Paul, First off, I am NOT a mammalogist, but do read a lot, love all canids, and have read quite a bit about 'wild' dogs such as the Australian Dingo, the N.G. 'singing' dog, the 'Indian dogs' of the U.S.A., and some extinct breeds such as the Hawaiian 'poi' dog which was fed a diet of Colocasia esculenta (poi) to improve it`s flavor, then they were killed, baked and eaten (see, there IS an Aroid 'link' here!). The Dingo is thought to have been brought down the Indonesian chain and ultimately into Australia (several thousand years ago) by the ORIGINAL and first humans to that continent, the forefathers of the present-day abroigines, where the dogs went ferral or wild. They can be brought back into domestication in a short space of time by simply selactivly choosing and breeding the more docile/submissive individuals. The European/'white' man had NOTHING to do with the Dingo`s introduction to Australia! It has also been proven that when a population of most/any 'breed' of dog is left to its own devices, in a relativly short space of time, in some cases just a few generations, they revert to a 'basic' (homogenous) dog 'form', and can survive and thrive in a 'wild' state-- these 'basic' dog forms (they all look very much alike!) can be seen/USED to be seen world-wide in 'third world' countries as street/stray dogs, like on the streets of 'my' Trinidad, all resemble the dingo and the N.G. 'singing' dog! Our 'Butch' and 'Brown-boy' of my youth in Trinidad were like this, wonderful, SMART, intelligent animals. Most of the above information came from a recent 'Natural History' mag. article on the discovery of a wild/ferral population of the 'Indian dog' in the S.E. USA, I so enjoyed reading it. IF this was a 'dog list' I could go on about another article that detailed that how in a few generations wild foxes being bred for fur were then selectivley bred using an unusually friendly (she wagged her tail, the other foxes did NOT do this!) female into a multivcolored 'breed/var. that was tame, multi-colored, tail wagging (wild foxes do NOT do this!) and friendly almost like dogs, and in just around 20 YEARS!! So---it may not have been TOO difficult for early man to have 'tamed' and selectivly bred the dog as we now know it from an especially friendly/submissive individual belonging to one of the subspecies of wolf! What amazes me in all this, and MOST people do not seem to realise it, is that plants and animals can and do evolve at a very fast pace, in some cases just months/one/a few generations, the recent letter about the person who selectivly 'improved' a species of orchid in just a few years to the point where the judges did not believe that he had NOT produced a hybrid illustrated this perfectly! With Aroids we must keep in mind how VERY quickly these plants can evolve vegetativly. I invite anyone/all of you to purchase a plant on what is presently being called Xanthosoma atrovirens 'monstrosum', the species with the little 'frills/labia' under its dark-green leaf blades ('Plantnut'/Dewey generally has this species available). This thing will evolve before your very eyes, the 'pups' very often look nothing like the parent plant, and this is vegetativly, mind you---imagine what one could do if you took the trouble to pollenate it and grow many seedlings! Colocasia esculenta was 'made' into over two HUNDRED (or more???) distinctice forms or cultivars on Hawaii alone in just a few thousand years, and done VEGETATIVLY, and in Brazil Xanthosoma sagittifolia has seemingly been selactivly 'improved', again vegetativly, where my friend Eduardo tells they cook the young leaves to produce the eqivelant of our Trinidadian spinach-like dish, 'calaloo'. Leaves of the form/cultivar of X. sagittifolia on Trinidad causes terrible itching, and 'we' have the leaves of our 'dasheen', a cultivar of Colocasia that has no itch, so we have no reason to even try to select or 'produce' a non-itching cultivar of Xanthosoma. I THINK I read that the wild Colocasia esculenta was found somewhere in the Indonesian area?? Maybe Pete can fill us in?? Too long, too boring, forgive me. Cheers, Julius Boos +More W.P.B., FLORIDA >Okay. Next question -- how does one determine this? Nowadays we have DNA analysis, but Linnaeus did not. What about the Dingo and the New Guinea Whistling Dog, which are both wild descendants of domestic dogs? > Haven't Dingos been here in Australia longer than the white man? If that is the case then I doubt they are descendents of domestic dogs. If they ARE wild descendents, then how did they become so homogenous and distinct in only 200 years being wild? You've got me wondering now. Cheers. Paul Tyerman Canberra, Australia. USDA equivalent - Zone 8 mailto:ptyerman@ozemail.com.au Growing.... Galanthus, Erythroniums, Fritillarias, Crocus, Cyrtanthus, Liliums, Hellebores, Aroids, Irises plus just about anything else that doesn't move!!!!!

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