''Dusicyon'' is an extinct

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of South American

canid Canidae (; from Latin, ''canis'', "dog") is a family (biology), biological family of caniform carnivorans, constituting a clade. A member of this family is also called a canid (). The family includes three subfamily, subfamilies: the Caninae, a ...

Taxonomy

The type species is ''Dusicyon australis'', the Falkland Islands wolf. In 1914,

Oldfield Thomas Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (21 February 1858 – 16 June 1929) was a British zoologist. Career Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for ...

established this genus, in which he included the culpeo and other South American foxes. These other canids were removed to '' Lycalopex'' by Langguth in 1975.

Extinctions

Dusicyon avus ''Dusicyon avus'' is an extinct species of canid native to South America during the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. It was medium to large, about the size of a German shepherd. It was closely related to the Falkland Islands wolf ''(Dusicyon aus ...

'', widely distributed in the late

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

from Uruguay through

Buenos Aires Province Buenos Aires, officially the Buenos Aires Province, is the largest and most populous Provinces of Argentina, Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of the province an ...

to southernmost

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

, is the closest known relative of the Falkland Islands wolf; the two lineages split only about 16,000 years ago. It died out in the late Holocene, earlier estimates suggested about 2,980 years ago on the island of

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South America, South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main is ...

and almost 1,700 years ago in the continent. More recent research confirms much later extinction dates, with the latest confirmed records in the Pampean Region being 700 BP (1232–1397 AD) and southernmost Patagonia at 400 years BP (1454–1626 AD).

References

External links

(''Lycalopex'' mentioned as ''Dusicyon'') THE DANGEROUS WILD ANIMALS ACT 1976 (MODIFICATION) (NO.2) ORDER 2007. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2007/2465/schedule/made accessed 26 March 2014. Cerdocyonina Foxes Carnivoran genera Carnivorans of South America Holocene extinctions Extinct mammals of South America Mammals described in 1839 Taxa named by Charles Hamilton Smith {{canid-extinct-stub