Carpocyon is an extinct member of the Borophaginae

Borophaginae

The subfamily Borophaginae is an extinct group of canids called "bone crushing dogs" that were endemic to North America during the Oligocene to Pliocene and lived roughly 36—2.5 million years ago and existing for approximately .-Origin:...

, and a terrestrial

Terrestrial animal

Terrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land , as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water , or amphibians, which rely on a combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitats...

 canine

Canidae

Canidae is the biological family of carnivorous and omnivorous mammals that includes wolves, foxes, jackals, coyotes, and domestic dogs. A member of this family is called a canid . The Canidae family is divided into two tribes: Canini and Vulpini...

 (Bear-dog) which inhabited most of North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 during the Barstovian

Barstovian

The Barstovian North American Stage on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology , typically set from 16,300,000 to 13,600,000 years BP, a period of . It is usually considered to overlap the Langhian and Serravallian...

 stage of the Middle Miocene

Middle Miocene

The Middle Miocene is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages: the Langhian and Serravallian stages. The Middle Miocene is preceded by the Early Miocene....

 through the Hemphillian

Hemphillian

The Hemphillian North American Stage on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology , typically set from 10,300,000 to 4,900,000 years BP, a period of . It is usually considered to overlap the Tortonian epoch of the Late...

 stage of the Late Miocene

Late Miocene

The Late Miocene is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch....

 epoch 20.4—3.9 Mya. Carpocyon existed for approximately .

Taxonomy

Carpocyon was named by Webb in 1969 and assigned to Canidae by Webb that same year. In 1988, Carroll assigned it to Canidae with X. Wang assigning it to Borophagina in 1999.

Morphology

Two fossil specimens of Carpocyon were measured by Legendre and Roth in 1988. They estimated that specimen one weighed 24.1 kg (53.1 lb) and the second weighed 21.8 kg (48.1 lb). Its physical size was between a jackal

Jackal

Although the word jackal has been historically used to refer to many small- to medium-sized species of the wolf genus of mammals, Canis, today it most properly and commonly refers to three species: the black-backed jackal and the side-striped jackal of sub-Saharan Africa, and the golden jackal of...

 and a small wolf.

Species

• Carpocyon compressus (synonymous with Cynodesmus cuspidatus) lived 23.13—13.6 Ma, existing for . Weight of two specimens were estimated at 19.3 kg (42.5 lb) and 17.6 kg (38.8 lb)
• Carpocyon limosus lived from 16.3—10.3 Ma, existing for .
• Carpocyon robustus lived 13.6—10.3 Ma, existing for . Weight of two specimens were 27 kg (59.5 lb) and 24.3 kg (53.6 lb).
• Carpocyon webbi lived from 16.3—10.3 Ma, existing for . Weight of two specimens were estimated at 30.4 kg (67 lb) and 27.2 kg (60 lb)

Sources

• zipcodezoo.com
• paleodb.org
• The Biology and Conservation of Wild Canids By David W. Macdonald, and Claudio Sillero-Zubiri ISBN 0198515553
• Flynn, J.J., 1998. Early Cenozoic Carnivora ("Miacoidea"). pp. 110–123 in C.M. Janis, K.M. Scott, and L.L. Jacobs (eds.) Evolution of Tertiary Mammals of North America. Volume 1: Terrestrial Carnivores, Ungulates, and Ungulatelike Mammals. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-35519-2

General references

• Xiaoming Wang, Richard H. Tedford, Mauricio Antón, Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History, New York : Columbia University Press, 2008; ISBN 978-0-231-13528-3