Epicyon

Epicyon
Temporal range: Early Miocene–Late Miocene
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Canidae
Subfamily: Borophaginae
Genus: Epicyon
Leidy, 1858
Type species
Epicyon haydeni
Species[1]
  • E. aelurodontoides
  • E. haydeni
  • E. saevus

Epicyon ("more than a dog") is a large, extinct, canid genus of the subfamily Borophaginae ("bone-crushing dogs"), native to North America. Epicyon existed for about 15 million years from the Hemingfordian age of the Early Miocene to the Hemphillian of the Late Miocene.[2]

Epicyon, which was about 5 feet long, had an estimated weight of 200-300 pounds.[3] Epicyon had a massive head and powerful jaws, giving its skull a lion-like shape rather than that of a wolf.

Epicyon was one of the last of the Borophaginae and shared its North American habitat with other canids:

Canis lepophagus may be the ancestor to the wolf.

Taxonomy

Epicyon was named by Joseph Leidy in 1858 as a subgenus of Canis. It was also mentioned as belonging to Aelurodontina by William Diller Matthew & Stirton in 1930.

Fossil range

Fossil specimens range from Florida to Alberta, Canada to California; from Nebraska, and Kansas to New Mexico and Texas.

Species

References

  1. Wang, Xiaoming; Richard Tedford; Beryl Taylor (1999-11-17). "Phylogenetic systematics of the Borophaginae" (PDF). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 243. Retrieved 2007-07-08.
  2. PaleoBiology Database: Epicyon
  3. http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/mesozoicmammals/p/epicyon.htm
  4. Sorkin, B. 2008: A biomechanical constraint on body mass in terrestrial mammalian predators. Lethaia, Vol. 41, pp. 333–347

General references


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