Epicyon saevus

via iDigBio · via iDigBio. 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
- EpicyonPBDB
- 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 3.1 million years on record.
The record covers at least 12.5 Mya to 9.4 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 4.7 Mya.
78 occurrences of Epicyon saevus on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
78 occurrencesThese 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
14 formations
- Ash Hollow Formation · Ogallala Group34
- Snake Creek Formation8
- Wood Mountain Formation6
- Ogallala Formation3
- Dove Spring Formation · Ricardo Group3
- Alachua Formation2
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The named rock units Epicyon saevus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Epicyon saevus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Epicyon saevus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
532 taxa- Teleoceras major32 sites
- Aelurodon taxoides28 sites
- Epicyon haydeni23 sites
- Hippotherium18 sites
- Ustatochoerus major18 sites
- Camelidae16 sites
- Leptocyon matthewi15 sites
- Pseudhipparion gratum15 sites
- Cranioceras unicornis13 sites
- Aphelops megalodus12 sites
- Paratomarctus euthos12 sites
- Nannippus11 sites
- Neohipparion trampasense11 sites
- Calippus martini10 sites
- Cormohipparion occidentale10 sites
- Longirostromeryx wellsi10 sites
- Protohippus supremus10 sites
- Hipparion tehonense9 sites
- Neohipparion affine9 sites
- Pliohippus pernix9 sites
- Pseudhipparion skinneri9 sites
- Cynarctus crucidens8 sites
- Eucastor tortus8 sites
- Mylagaulidae8 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 78 sites for Epicyon saevus, 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
12 references- Phylogenetic systematics of the Borophaginae (Carnivora: Canidae)44
- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals13
- Evolutionary trends in the late Miocene hyena-like dog Epicyon (Carnivora, Canidae)8
- Vertebrate biostratigraphy of the Ogallala Group in Nebraska3
- Miocene biostratigraphy and biochronology of the Dove Spring Formation, Mojave Desert, California, and characterization of the Clarendonian mammal age (late Miocene) in California2
- Faunal succession and biochronology of the Arikareean through Hemphillian interval (late Oligocene through earliest Pliocene epochs) in North America2
- The geology and paleontology of Ashfall Fossil Beds, a late Miocene (Clarendonian) mass-death assemblage, Antelope County and adjacent Knox County, Nebraska, USA1
- Stratigraphy and mammalian paleontology of the Ash Hollow Formation (upper Miocene) on the north shore of Lake McConaughy, Keith County, Nebraska1
- The skeleton of Borophaginae (Carnivora, Canidae): Morphology and function1
- A new Clarendonian (late Miocene) fauna from eastern Nevada1
- Pliocene Vertebrates From Big Spring Canyon South Dakota1
- Notice of Remains of Extinct Vertebrata, from the Valley of the Niobrara River, Collected during the Exploring Expedition of 1857, in Nebraska, under the Command of Lieut. G. K. Warren, U. S. Top. Eng., by Dr. F. V. Hayden, Geologist to the Expedition1
Each of the 78 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 Epicyon saevus
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Epicyon saevus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itEpicyon through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Leidy 1858)