Canis armbrusteri

Armbruster's wolf is an extinct species of canine that was endemic to North America and lived during the Early to Middle Pleistocene epoch. It is proposed as the ancestor of the dire wolf, one of the most famous prehistoric carnivores in North America, and likely belongs to the same genus Aenocyon.

Canis armbrusteri

Geekgecko · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
CanisPBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Canidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Canidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 645 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 1.8 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Pleistocene — about 19 of 19 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 19 occurrences1.8–1.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.5–1.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.3–1.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.2–1.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.1–1.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.1–997 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence997 ka–920 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence920 ka–843 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence843 ka–767 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence767 ka–690 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences690 ka–613 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences613 ka–537 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences537 ka–460 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences460 ka–383 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences383 ka–307 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences307 ka–230 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences230 ka–153 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences153 ka–77 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences77 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence774 ka129 ka2.3 Mya0 Mya

19 occurrences of Canis armbrusteri on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

19 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

4 formations

Bermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°WSeymour — 33.75°N, 99.50°WTule — 34.51°N, 101.41°WBacons Castle — 38.16°N, 76.83°W

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The named rock units Canis armbrusteri has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 14 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Canis armbrusteri and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Canis armbrusteri and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

473 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Canis armbrusteri, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

13 references

Each of the 19 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Canis armbrusteri

Credit
Geekgecko
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Canis armbrusteri was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCanis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gidley 1913)