Madagascar's dogs are 100% African: study

The University of Stellenbosch was shocked to find that the dogs of Madagascar appear to have no links to Indonesia.

"We were surprised when we saw the results. We expected 100 percent or 50 percent ancestry from Indonesia—but it was zero percent" the study's authors said according to the university's media statement.

"The presence of dogs in Africa might be older than previously thought," Stellenbosch University geneticist Dr Barbara van Asch, who was part of the study, said.

"Dogs, together with pigs and chicken, were important domestic animals in the Austronesian culture," says Prof Peter Savolainen of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden.

"So it would be expected that dogs were brought in the colonisation of major new areas, and a seemingly total absence in Madagascar of dogs with Austronesian heritage is surprising."

According to Savolainen, the most likely reason for the dogs not having any Indonesian ancestry might be that the trip was long - and the sailors hungry.

"It is possible that if the dogs were brought along on these long journeys, they died from the hardship, or were used as a food source," Savolainen said.

The study was published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.