A ‘dog’ with an unusual appearance is rescued after being run over in the municipality of Vacária, in Rio Grande do Sul.
The female had “eyes similar to those of a dog and a body similar to the prawn”, a wild canid mammal typical of the Pampa biome, which eats small rodents and birds.
With different characteristics from the graxains found in the region, the animal was sent to the UFRGS Veterinary Clinics Hospital (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) and, initially, treated as a dog.
However, after a few days, veterinarians realized that the mammal had a wild behavior, did not appear to be a “domestic dog” nor did it want to eat the food that dogs normally consume. So, they decided to give little mice to the animal, which ate everything right away. After that, the female was transferred to the sector that serves wild animals.
“She was a very incredible animal, she was really a mix. She was neither as docile as a dog nor as wild as a cat,” recalls Flávia Ferrari, a veterinarian and former resident of the UFRGS Veterinary Clinics Hospital, responsible for the treatment during the period in which the female was hospitalized at the location.
The case occurred in 2021 and, after fully recovering, the female was studied by scientists. The findings, which we show below, were published in August this year, in the journal Animals.
Upon leaving the hospital, the unusual animal was transferred to Mantenedouro São Braz, in Santa Maria (RS), as determined by the Secretariat for the Environment and Infrastructure (Sema), where it remained until 2023, when it died. The cause of death was not disclosed.
Rare and unprecedented case in South America
Female had eyes similar to those of a dog and a body similar to a greasefish Image: Flávia Ferrari
Researchers from UFRGS (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) and UFPel (Federal University of Pelotas) reached the following conclusions in their study, published in Animals:
The animal was the result of a rare cross between two species of different genders: a male domestic dog and a female graxaim-do-campo.
This was the first case of hybridization between a domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) and a wild canid (Lycalopex gymnocercus) registered in South Americaaccording to scientists Bruna Elenara Szynwelski, Rafael Kretschmer, Cristina Araujo Matzenbacher, Flávia Ferrari, Marcelo Meller Alievi and Thales Renato Ochotorena de Freitas.
Cases of crossbreeding between wild canines and domestic dogs have already been documented in North America and Europe.
“This discovery shows that, despite these species having diverged around 6.7 million years ago and belonging to different genera, they can still produce viable hybrids”, says the text of the study.
Crossing raises environmental concerns
The relationship between a wild animal and a domestic animal is worrying, as it shows that these species had such close and intimate contact that made crossing possible, explains Ferrari. This approach has the potential to cause several effects in nature.
One of the main impacts is the possibility of transmitting diseases from one species to another, analyzes Rafael Kretschmer, one of the authors of the research. “In addition to the possibility of introgression, which is an event in which genes are transferred from one species to another”, he explains.
This introgression could interrupt the adaptation of wild animals to the environment in which they live, changing these animals’ habits and even putting the species at risk..
Scientists state that future studies will be necessary to investigate the frequency of hybridization, the possibility of genetic introgression of canine genes in Graxaim-do-campo populations and the impacts of this event on genetic, behavioral and ecological factors of Graxaim-do-campo populations. field.
2023-09-10 11:16:00
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