The wide ranging genus Eucyon Tedford & Qiu, 1996 (Mammalia, Carnivora, Canidae, Canini) in the Mio-Pliocene of the Old World
Author
Rook, Lorenzo
Università di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, via G. La Pira, I- 50121 Firenze (Italy) lorenzo. rook @ unifi. it
rook@unifi.it
text
Geodiversitas
2009
31
4
723
741
journal article
10.5281/zenodo.5381420
1638-9395
5381420
Eucyon odessanus
(
Odintzov, 1967
)
TYPE
LOCALITY
. —
Odessa
Catacombs (
Ukraine
).
AGE. — early Pliocene (Ruscinian;
MN
15).
GEOGRAPHIC RANGE. —
Moldova
,
Ukraine
,
Greece
,
Turkey
.
A very large sample from the
Odessa
catacombs (MN15;
Ukraine
) has been described as
Vulpes odessana
by
Odintzov (1967)
.
Rook (1993)
considered this material, as well as the unpublished skull from the early Pliocene of Etulia in
Moldova
(kept in the collections of the Institute of Geology in Moscow) as belonging to the genus
Eucyon
. The dentition of
E. odessanus
is similar in dimensions to
E. davisi
but it shows some differences in premolars proportions (
Tedford & Qiu 1996
; Spassov & Rook 2007).
Two hemimandibles from Alatini (now Megalo Emvolon; early Pliocene of
Greece
;
Koufos
et al
. 1991
) were described as
Nyctereutes donnezani
(Depéret, 1890)
by
Sickenberg (1972)
. Doubts regarding the generic attribution of this material were expressed by
Soria & Aguirre (1976)
and referral to
Eucyon
has been suggested by
Rook (1993)
.
Koufos (1997)
re-described one of the mandibles as
E.davisi
, although stressing some similarities with the species
E. odessanus
. In the writer opinion,
E. odessanus
is to be considered a species distinct from
E. davisi
and the Megalo Emvolon specimens are better attributable to the Odessa species.
Eucyon
cf.
odessanus
is also reported from a middle Villafranchian site of
Turkey
(Sarikol Tepe;
Kostopoulos & Sen 1999
).