Lycalopex culpaeus
The culpeo, also known as Culpeo zorro, Andean zorro, Andean fox, Paramo wolf, Andean wolf, and colpeo fox, is a species of South American fox. Despite the name, it is not a true fox, but more closely related to wolves and jackals. Its appearance resembles that of foxes due to convergent evolution.

Charles J. Sharp · CC BY-SA 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- Also called
- culpeoPBDB
- Sits inside
- LycalopexPBDB
- 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 most 400 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 400 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
6 occurrences of Lycalopex culpaeus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
6 occurrences- Pleistocene83%
- Holocene17%
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
1 formation
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The named rock units Lycalopex culpaeus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Lycalopex culpaeus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Lycalopex culpaeus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
64 taxa- Dusicyon avus4 sites
- Hippidion3 sites
- Lama guanicoe3 sites
- Canidae2 sites
- Lycalopex griseus2 sites
- Panthera leo atrox2 sites
- Abrocoma1 site
- Abrothrix longipilis1 site
- Aconaemys fuscus1 site
- Agalmaceros1 site
- Akodon1 site
- Anas flavirostris1 site
- Anas georgica1 site
- Antifer ultra1 site
- Ardea alba1 site
- Biomphalaria1 site
- Buteo1 site
- Calyptocephalella gayi1 site
- Camelidae1 site
- Catonyx1 site
- Cervidae1 site
- cf. Philodryas sp.1 site
- Chinchillula sahamae1 site
- Columbidae1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Lycalopex culpaeus, 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
3 references- Extinctions in near time: new radiocarbon dates point to a very recent disappearance of the South American fox Dusicyon avus (Carnivora: Canidae)4
- Taguatagua 1: New insights into the late Pleistocene fauna, paleoenvironment, and human subsistence in a unique lacustrine context in central Chile1
- The Casa del Diablo cave (Puno, Peru) and the late Pleistocene demise of megafauna in the Andean Altiplano1
Each of the 6 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Lycalopex culpaeus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Charles J. Sharp
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Structured light scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Lycalopex culpaeus andinus · FMNH:Mammals:23828
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Culpeo”
- 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 itLycalopex through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Molina 1782)