The mystery extinct canid is Epicyon (“near dog.”) This genus of large canids lived in North America until about 5 million year ago.
It was a Borophagine (“bone crushing dog” or “hyena-like dog.”) The Borophaginae were a subfamily of early canids that lived exclusively in North America. Although the larger members of this subfamily clearly had bone crushing capabilities, many of the smaller members were actually more like raccoons.
The bigger members of this subfamily include the Epicyon dogs, which were quite hyena-like and were about twice the size of a large wolf; the Borophagus dogs that were a quite bit smaller but possessed more powerful jaws; and the Aelurodon dogs, which were massive pack hunters with similarly strong jaws.
The largest dog ever to exist was Aelurdon taxoides. The biggest specimens of that species were about the same size as a tiger.
One of my favorite cryptozoological explorations is the Shuka warakin. A supposed specimen of this animal was collected in 1886. This creature was taxidermied and then lost for over a century.
It was recently found, and a few cryptozoologists have suggested that it was a Borophagus. (This article incorrectly calls Borophagus a hyena. It was not a hyena. It was a dog that had hyena features and lived like a hyena.)
My guess is that was some kind of abnormal wolf or wolf hybrid.
However, because it had a sloping back, I wonder if it could have been an early form of show German shepherd.
Someone is trying to breed a German shepherd-type dog so that it looks like a dire wolf.
Maybe that’s what they are trying to do to the German shepherd dog.
It’s supposed to be a Bor0phagus!
[…] Epicyon. […]
Perhaps the reason the cryptozoologists mistakenly called the shuka warakin (or Borophagine) a hyena is because many people think that hyenas are canids.
What I’m trying to say is that if you thought Hyenas were dogs, and were talking about a cryptid canis which resembled a hyena, you would just automatically think you could also call the cryptid a hyena.
I’ve heard many people call african wild dogs hyenas because they’ve assumed that hyenas were dogs.
In German, Lycaon pictus is called “Hyänenhund”– Hyena dog.
The only time I’ve ever been disappointed in Sir David Attenborough was when he called a brown hyena a dog in the Life of Mammals series.
Although in modern German the tendency is to call them Afrikanischer Wildhund. (African wild dog).
Gosh, how I wish I had a nickel for every time someone at our zoo called our African Wild Dogs “Hyenas”–I’d be able to buy the zoo!(humans don’t, as a species, tend to read signs very well….). What a particular insult for the Wild Dogs, as they HATE hyenas!!!!!(Although I love all types of hyenas myself–just not something I’ll admit to in front of any African Wild Dogs! If you do, you immediately lose credibility in their eyes….)
In what ways are the African Wild dogs different from regular dogs or North American Wolves?
They are much more successful hunters. They have like a 70 percent success rating when they hunt.
The communicate with whimpers all the time when on the hunt.
They have rounded ears.
They are more carnivorous than wolves or domestic dogs, and their dentition reflects this.
But the real difference is that the African wild dog is a living fossil.
Before the wolf became the dominant canid species, it was secondary to a larger species called Xenocyon lycaonoides.
It was less specialized than the African wild dog, and was as wide-ranging as the wolf eventually became.
It then went extinct.
Except that one of its descendants was this hypercarnivorous African pack-hunting form, which we called Lycaon pictus, the African wild dog.
And in this way, it’s a living fossil.
I don’t think the dhole is a descendant of Xenocyon lycaonoides. I think it’s more closely related to Canis, specifically the Africa-only jackals, than to Xenocyon or the African wild dog. The similarities are more morphological than genetic.