Fuegian Dog

In the year 1520, Europeans discovered the southernmost point of South America. They called it Tierra del Fuego, or Land of Fire, because campfires of local people could be seen dotting the land.

These people, the Selk'nam and the Yaghans, had their own dogs that were used as hunting companions, and according to some Victorian explorers, the dogs and their masters huddled together for warmth. The Europeans didn't pay much attention to the dogs, apparently since they were busy exterminating both the dogs and their masters to make room for themselves.

However, it was later realized that the now-extinct Fuegian dog was not a dog at all, but a domesticated form of the Andean fox (Pseudalopex culpaeus). All that is known about this remarkable creature now comes from a few traveller's accounts from Victorian times (describing them as "stunted" and "ugly", among other things) and a single stuffed individual in a Chilean museum.

I decided there are far too few pictures of Fuegian dogs on the Internet, so I decided to make my own. Another version of this picture illustrates an article on domesticated canids in my new blog, The Humming Dinosaur: [link]