Aenocyon dirus

The dire wolf is an extinct species of canine which was native to the Americas during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene epochs. The species was named in 1858, four years after the first specimen had been found. Two subspecies are proposed, Aenocyon dirus guildayi and Aenocyon dirus dirus, but this assignment has been recently considered questionable. The largest collection of its fossils has been obtained from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.

Aenocyon dirus

James St. John · CC BY 2.0 · 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
Also called
dire wolfPBDB
Sits inside
AenocyonPBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Canidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Canidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Length
180 cmWikidata

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 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Pliocene — about 0 of 86 occurrencesPleistocene — about 86 of 86 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 86 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.2–1.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.1–1.0 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.0–924 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 18 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 48 occurrences774 ka129 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

86 occurrences of Aenocyon dirus 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

86 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

14 formations

Palos Verdes Sand — 33.60°N, 117.80°WPalos Verdes Sand — 34.00°N, 118.20°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.76°N, 118.29°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.63°N, 117.89°WKingsdown — 37.04°N, 100.48°WKingsdown — 37.20°N, 100.30°WWando — 33.01°N, 79.09°WWando — 32.88°N, 80.10°WManix — 34.80°N, 117.00°WTacubaya — 21.80°N, 102.30°WTurlock Lake — 37.06°N, 120.20°WAmerican Falls Lake Bed E — 42.80°N, 112.90°WWicomico — 29.60°N, 82.42°WSan Pedro — 33.75°N, 118.28°WRiverbank — 38.60°N, 121.50°WSilver Bluff — 32.56°N, 80.29°WTarija — 21.53°S, 64.73°WShuler — 32.71°N, 96.71°WGuxiangtun — 45.92°N, 127.40°E

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The named rock units Aenocyon dirus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 67 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Aenocyon dirus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Aenocyon dirus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,445 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 84 sites for Aenocyon dirus, 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

69 references

Each of the 86 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. 57 further references are not listed. 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 Aenocyon dirus

Credit
James St. John
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Aenocyon dirus 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.

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 itAenocyon through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Leidy 1858)