Sunkahetanka

Sunkahetanka Temporal range: Early Oligocene–Late Oligocene PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Canidae
Subfamily:	†Hesperocyoninae
Genus:	†Sunkahetanka Macdonald, 1963
Species:	†S. geringensis
Binomial name
†Sunkahetanka geringensis (Barbour & Schultz, 1935)

Sunkahetanka is an extinct genus of small bone crushing omnivorous mammal (similar to a dog of the family Canidae) which inhabited North America during the Oligocene living from 30.8—26.3 Ma and existed for approximately 4.5 million years. ^[1]

Taxonomy

Philotrox was named by Macdonald (1963).^[2] It was synonymized subjectively with Enhydrocyon by Swisher (1982); it was revalidated by Carroll (1988), Wang (1994) and Wang and Tedford (1996). It was assigned to Canidae by Macdonald (1963), Carroll (1988), Wang (1994) and Wang and Tedford (1996).^[3]

Morphology

Two specimens were examined by Legendre and Roth for body mass. The first specimen was estimated to weigh 12.8 kg (28 lb). The second specimen was estimated to weigh 13.8 kg (30 lb).^[4]

References

Notes

1. Paleobiology Database: Sunkahetanka Basic info.
2. J. R. Macdonald. 1963. The Miocene faunas from the Wounded Knee area of western South Dakota. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 125(3):139-238
3. X. Wang and R. H. Tedford. 1996. in Prothero and Emry
4. S. Legendre and C. Roth. 1988. Correlation of carnassial tooth size and body weight in recent carnivores (Mammalia). Historical Biology 1(1):85-98

Sources

• Wang, X. 1994. Phylogenetic systematics of the Hesperocyoninae (Carnivora, Canidae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 221:1-207.