Ancient Dogs, Bear-dogs & Direwolves

Ancient Dogs, Bear-dogs & Direwolves - Printable Version

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Ancient Dogs - brotherbear - 05-12-2016

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160511122514.htm?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Date:
May 11, 2016

Source:

University of Pennsylvania

Summary:

A doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania has identified a new species of fossil dog. The specimen, found in Maryland, would have roamed the coast of eastern North America approximately 12 million years ago, at a time when massive sharks like megalodon swam in the oceans.

RE: Ancient Dogs - brotherbear - 05-12-2016

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150812103827.htm

August 12, 2015

Source:

University of Gothenburg

Summary:

Competition played a more important role in the evolution of the dog family (wolves, foxes, and their relatives) than climate change, shows a new international study. Researchers analyzed over 2000 fossils and revealed that the arrival of felids to North America from Asia had a deadly impact on the diversity of the dog family, contributing to the extinction of as many as 40 of their species.

RE: Ancient Dogs - brotherbear - 05-13-2016

https://retrieverman.net/tag/borophaginae/

http://www.visiontimes.com/2016/05/13/this-12-million-year-old-dog-may-not-have-been-mans-best-friend.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

The discovery of a 12 million year-old dog fossil has placed yet another species on the growing list of discoveries. However, this dog that lived in a time when the massive megalodon shark roamed in the oceans would not have been man’s best friend.
The new canine species has been named Cynarctus wangi, named after Xiaoming Wang a curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and a renowned expert on mammalian carnivores.
This coyote-sized dog was a member of the extinct subfamily Borophaginae, commonly known as bone-crushing dogs because of their powerful jaws and broad teeth. Unlike modern dogs it would have lived like a “mini-bear” with a diet of plants, insects, and meat, and is believed to have had a formidable bite.
The study’s lead author, Steven E. Jasinski, a student in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, said in a statement:

Quote:“Based on its teeth, probably only about a third of its diet would have been meat.
“It would have supplemented that by eating plants or insects, living more like a mini-bear than like a dog.”

The fossil specimen was found in Maryland by an amateur collector on the beach under the Choptank Formation in Maryland’s Calvert Cliffs region. Fossils found from this region and time period are relatively rare, so when one is found it helps to fill in important missing pieces of what prehistoric life was like on North American’s East Coast, Jasinski said:

Quote: “Most fossils known from this time period represent marine animals, who become fossilized more easily than animals on land.
“It is quite rare we find fossils from land animals in this region during this time, but each one provides important information for what life was like then.
“This new dog gives us useful insight into the ecosystem of eastern North America between 12 and 13 million years ago.”

Paleontologists speculate that modern canines — like wolves or coyotes — probably out-competed the bone crushers to extinction. It’s also understood the Cynarctus wangi would have lived beside ancient animals, which would have included ancient pigs, an elephant-like animal known as a gomphothere.

The C. wangi represents the first known carnivore from the Choptank Formation, however some of the animals that it would have lived beside it include the ancient pigs Desmathyus and Prosthenops, the horned artiodactyl Prosynthetoceras, an ancient elephant-like animal known as a gomphothere, and perhaps the ancient horse Merychippus.

RE: Ancient Dogs - brotherbear - 05-13-2016

https://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/florida-vertebrate-fossils/species/epicyon-haydeni/

Epicyon haydeni - About the size of a grizzly bear, this species is the[b] largest canid ever known.

Its known range extended across the United States from Florida to California and Oregon.[/b]

Borophagines - Polar - 12-10-2016

An ancient family of canids, albeit with more flexible limbs and stronger shoulder like Amphicyon, ruled over North America for nearly 36 million years. These "bone-crushing dogs" ranged greatly in size, from Tomarctos at 30-40 pounds all the way to E. haydeni, weighing in anywhere from 250-400 pounds. This thread is dedicated to this long-forgotten subgroup of canines.

Borophagus

*This image is copyright of its original author

Osteoborus

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Epicyon

*This image is copyright of its original author

RE: Borophagines - brotherbear - 12-10-2016

They had to be the terror of their environment; like seeing a pack of lion-sized pit bull terriers coming after you.

RE: Borophagines - jacksonsmash - 12-11-2016

Owhich spiecies of prehistoric cats would they have competed with? They were contemporaries of machairodus if I remember correctly but did they survive long enough to live next to homotherium?

RE: Borophagines - Polar - 12-11-2016

(12-11-2016, 12:11 PM)jacksonsmash Wrote: Owhich spiecies of prehistoric cats would they have competed with? They were contemporaries of machairodus if I remember correctly but did they survive long enough to live next to homotherium?

Mostly with machairodontines (saber-toothed felines) like Smilodon fatalis, but maybe even some much smaller felines and possibly marsupial predators (in South America) such as Thylacosmilus. From my research, Homotherium existed in North America about 1.5 million years ago (don't know when they died off), but then the latest borophagine fossil was found to be dated about ~1.9 million years ago? So, it is likely they wouldn't have met.

RE: Borophagines - brotherbear - 12-11-2016

I believe that the giant dogs might have been contemporaries with the entelodonts; perhaps Daenodon. If so, some savage battles likely took place.

*This image is copyright of its original author

RE: Ancient Dogs - epaiva - 06-07-2017

Epicyon haydeni

*This image is copyright of its original author

Approximate total length of Skull: 34 cm, It was the largest canid ever known, pictures taken from the Book Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolucionary History

Bear-dogs (Amphicyon) - epaiva - 07-02-2017

*This image is copyright of its original author

Amphicyon ("ambiguous dog") is an extinct genus of large carnivorous bone-crushing mammals, popularly known as bear-dogs, of the family Amphicyonidae, subfamily Amphicyoninae, from the Aquitanian Epoch until the early Pleistocene. They ranged over North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa from 16.9—2.6 Ma ago, existing approximately 14.3 million years.
Amphicyon was the typical bear-dog amphicyonid with morphology similar to both bears and dogs. With its robust build and maximum length of 2.5 m (8 ft), the largest species looked more like a bear than a dog. It had a large heavy tail, thick neck, robust limbs and teeth like a wolf. It was probably an omnivore with a lifestyle comparable to that of the brown bear. The earliest occurrences of Amphicyon in North America are from the early to mid-Miocene, found in the Runningwater Formation in Sioux County, Nebraska, and from the lower part of the Troublesome Formation, Colorado (A. galushai, A. frendens, and A. ingens). Although other large amphicyonids from the Miocene of North America have been placed in Amphicyon, many of these carnivores are now placed in other amphicyonid genera.
Dimensions: length - 2,5 m, height - 120 сm, weight - 200-550 kg

RE: Ancient Dogs - epaiva - 07-27-2017

Dire wolf (Canis dirus)
The dire wolf (Canis dirus, "fearsome dog") is an extinct species of the genus Canis. It is one of the most famous prehistoric carnivores in North America, along with its extinct competitor, the sabre-toothed cat Smilodon fatalis. The dire wolf lived in the Americas during the Late Pleistocene epoch (125,000–10,000 years ago). The species was named in 1858, four years after the first specimen had been found.The dire wolf was about the same size as the largest modern gray wolves (Canis lupus), which are the Yukon wolf weighed on average 60 kilograms (132 lb) and C. d. dirus was on average 68 kg (150 lb). Its skull and dentition matched those of C. lupus, but its teeth were larger with greater shearing ability, and its bite force at the canine tooth was the strongest of any known Canis species. These characteristics are thought to be adaptations for preying on Late Pleistocene megaherbivores, and in North America its prey are known to have included horses, ground sloths, mastodons, bison, and camels.

*This image is copyright of its original author

RE: Ancient Dogs - epaiva - 08-03-2017

Dire wolf (Canis dirus) Skull, credits American Museum of Natural History

*This image is copyright of its original author

RE: Bear-dogs (Amphicyon ingens) - epaiva - 09-02-2017

*This image is copyright of its original author

Amphicyon gigas in American Museum of Natural History in New York City, credit to John LaSala

RE: Ancient Dogs - epaiva - 10-22-2017

Dire Wolf skulls
credit to La Brea Tar Pits and Museum