Canis dirus

Canis dirus is a canidé which lived the North America with the Pléistocène and died out there is approximately 10 000 years. Although it is close to the Loup gray (and consequently of the Chien) and that he was their contemporary, one does not look at it like their ancestor.

Physical and social characteristics

Canis dirus resembled the gray wolf in the face and in pace, it measured approximately 1,50 m length and weighed approximately 50 kg. It is probable that these wolves lived in bands, plain by bonds of family, and that they drove out in groups. The principal difference between the two species is in the structure of the skeleton, more massive and heavier at Canis dirus . Its legs were proportionally shorter, its larger head and more door, but the cranial capacity was less. Its teeth, larger and stronger than those of the gray wolf, were able to crush bones. Such characteristics suggest that it was not a good runner and that it nourished not very fast animals and of big size, or weakened preys and carrions, a little like the Hyène S of today, but also as of other predatory which lived at its time, the cat-like ones with teeth of saber like the Smilodon, which them also presented evolutionary adaptations for the hunting of animals of big size.

Distribution and chronology

Canis dirus probably evolved/moved in South America and it appears in the fossil register of the North America there is approximately 100 000 years. It quickly became super-predatory but it started to decline there is 16 000 years, which coincides with the arrived of the first men on the American continent through the Bering Strait. The causes of its extinction are not established clearly, but it is supposed that they must be in connection with the impact of the man on the mégafaune of North America. As little by little its traditional preys disappeared, like Megatherium , Canis dirus was tiny room to a mode primarily Nécrophage and died out here 10 000 years. On the contrary, the gray wolf which nourished smaller animals and more rapids, which survived on arrival of the man, suffered by no means from the impact and was maintained until our days.

The first fossil remainders of Canis dirus were discovered by Francis Lick on banks of the river Ohio in 1854, but the principal layer for this species is in the wells of Bitume of Brea in California where one discovered of them more 3 600 specimens.

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