Eucyon davisi
Creators: name: Rook, Lorenzo
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2009
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Carnivora
Canidae
Eucyon
Eucyon davisi

description: Eucyon davisi (Merriam, 1911)   
TYPE LOCALITY. — Rattlesnake Creek, early Hemphillian, Oregon.  
AGE. — Hemphillian (late Miocene to earliest Pliocene).  
GEOGRAPHIC RANGE. — United States; Eastern and Central Asia (see below).  
 This is a widely distributed species, first appearing in the Early Hemphillian (middle late Miocene) of western United States (Oregon, Nevada) and widely distributed in the late Hemphillian (latest Miocene to earliest Pliocene) through most of United States (Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas) (Harrison 1983; Rook 1993; Tedford et al. 2009) (Fig. 1). The intraspecific variability of this taxon, which has a very large temporal range, is considerable (cf. Rook 1993). Eucyon did not survive the late Hemphillian in North America (Wang & Tedford 2007, 2008).   
 A typical Canini trait that first occurs within North American species is the enlargement of the frontal sinuses that expand backwards with the tendency to extend at the level of the post-orbital constriction (Tedford et al. 1995; Wang & Tedford 2008). This is coupled with a more derived morphology (in respect to basal Caninae Leptocyon Matthew, 1918), in the external brain anatomy characterised by longer cruciate sulci, more expanded sigmoid gyri (although still relatively small) and by the presence of postcruciate and ansate sulci (Lyras & van der Geer 2003).   
 In living Canini, the expansion of frontal sinuses is linked to the increase of nasals cavity and the noticeable development of turbinate processes and thus to the olfactory system (Tedford et al. 1995). The complex maxilloturbinates, with their increase action of breath and moisture exchange, has been a key for canid success in both cold and arid environmental conditions (Wang & Tedford 2008). Such anatomical trait could be also used as an indirect, speculative, inference social behavioural of the genus. Social behaviour is usually not preserved in the fossil record and the typical canid pack hunting social behaviour can only be approached in an indirect way (Andersson 1991; Van Valkenburg & Koepli 1993; Van Valkenburg et al. 2003). Nowadays, social hunting in the Caninae is mostly confined to the Canis clade (Canis and Lycaon Brookes, 1827; Macdonald et al. 2004) and probably began to develop within this early member of the tribe Canini. The genus Eucyon, with its developing expanded turbinates/frontal sinuses, was probably one of the first members of the tribe to possibly use the developed olfactory system as a capability for developing social behaviour (pack hunting). The dramatic change in environmental scenario by the late Miocene was responsible of the replacement of forests and woodlands of the North American mid-continent by extensive grasslands (Cerling et al. 1997; Janis et al. 2002). This environmental shift coincided with the Hemphillian faunal turnover, which severely affected the diversity of mammals both in the ungulate and carnivore faunas (Van Valkenburg 1988; Webb & Opdyke 1995; Janis et al. 2002; Hunt 2004). A scene in which “the canine’s ultimate triumph in the world” (Wang & Tedford 2008: 131) is recorded, and in which the evolution of a behaviour common in living Canini, but very difficult to be detected in the fossil record, more probably emerged as well.   
ASIA
description: Published as part of Rook, Lorenzo, 2009, The wide ranging genus Eucyon Tedford & Qiu, 1996 (Mammalia, Carnivora, Canidae, Canini) in the Mio-Pliocene of the Old World, pp. 723-741 in Geodiversitas 31 (4) on pages 727-728, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5381420