@@SCP3143. If I'm not mistaken, Epicyon had paws that were to some extent similar to those of a bear, in theory it is the only large canid that could hold objects with its paws. Since it is theorized that they used it at some level to hold their prey. But there is a lack of depth to confirm this hypothesis or not.
The Canadian Timber Wolf, also known as the Mackenzie Valley Wolf or the Northwestern Wolf is recognized as the largest wolf in the world. Weighing up to an astonishing 175 pounds (79.4 kg) and measuring up to 7 feet (213 cm) in length. It is a subspecies of Grey Wolf
My friend had a Timber wolf that weighed 220 lbs. Of course it also laid in front of an ice chest full of dog food and would eat for like 15 minutes. It was obese for a wolf. One time we put shorts and a Tshirt on it, it went into the road and started howling right when the animal control officer starts driving up. He laughed so hard, then it shit its shorts, he laughed even harder and drove off saying your on your own.
Wood Buffalo Park, Northern AB has the largest wolves in an isolated area. They’re specialized to hunting bison in the wooded areas and MASSIVE. Wolves outside the park, while still huge (especially if from the park) but further away they get smaller.
Many of these records are reports or are kept in zoos, where they usually get even bigger. The genus canis in general for many years there has been no record in nature of such large specimens. Today the greatest find in Nature is the Chrysocyon brachyurus Maned Wolf from Brazil, they are very rare to be seen, but huge, already being seen Specimens measuring 1.90 m (height) are more than once found in nature, and there are barely any specimens in captivity. Even if caught for treatment, they are then released into the Brazilian savannah. People tend to forget about him since he is the only one of his kind, but he is a Canis
@@saragates9890Also, weren’t humans shorter during those prehistoric times? 6’0 tall men with skinny frames are not good builds for survival out in the wilds and freezing cold. Early humans were much stronger and stockier.
This channel uses the best thumbnails! The pictures used to depict species are always high quality & reminiscent of hand drawn art back in books in the 70's. Amazing effort!
You otter do a video on Enhydriodon. The giant otter, Enhydriodon, is the largest known mustelid to ever exist, weighing around 440 lb (200 kg) and measuring over 9.8 ft (3 m) in length. They lived at the time of Australopithecus.
Jesus Christ, a lion sized mustelid, no predators today would stand a chance. I put my money on a mustelid any day, if they fight an animal their own size or even bigger. Unless it’s a 700+kg bear
FYI: mountain lions range considerably east of the orange on your map. They are more and more common all across Oklahoma to Arkansas and Texas. I've seen them myself and my family members no longer hunt alone after a petite aunt realized she was being stalked. Great channel. Subscribed.
I agree. We have caught a few on trail cams on the northern edge of Lake Sam Rayburn in deep East Texas. Locals have sworn to see them back into the 1990’s but we finally started getting pictures around 2015.
@@cheeksfadays6322 I first saw one in 1979 or '80 in a heavily wooded area NNE of OKC. By 2000 my family in southeast Oklahoma were seeing them as well as more sign of bears. Now, 20 years later, they are pulling alligators out of the lakes down there. (I don't camp out any more.)
Why does the map at 0:57 indicate South America with no canids? Maned Wolves, Bush Dogs, Short-eared Dogs, and seven species of fox call South America home.
@@KaiserToons the narrator was discussing the family Canidae and the map includes graphics for the African hunting dog (genus Lycaon). So, no. Just a big boo-boo.
@@JohnDrummondPhoto true.... but the map he was showing only appears to correlate to Canina, a subtribe of canidae. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canina_(subtribe) so maybe when he was doing research he grabbed the Canina distribution instead of a general Canidae distribution map? On a side note, today I learned the timber wolf and red wolf are not sub species of the grey wolf. :)
What do you call an Epicyon with a PhD in Paleontology? "Dr. Bark," the expert on prehistoric bones, who believes every dig site is just a game of fetch waiting to happen. 🤭
I wanna see them fight lions, good luck lion fighting a 16,000 newton dog that can weight the same amount of pounds as you. You’re basically fighting a crocodile dog.
@@S.F157the lion on average weighs much more than what the Epicyon Haydeni did. The 370 pound one was the largest estimated size of Epicyon Haydeni, most individuals weighed much less than that. And the largest lions weigh way more than 370 pounds. And having a huge jaw bite force alone wouldn't be enough regardless, the lions have claws to it's advantage and would most likely be quicker and more agile than the E.H, not to mention stronger...
@@harsha1989able actually if you check out the Validus (large Haydeni Specimens) they weighted around 181kg or more so basically 400Ib pounds. They were evolutionarily getting bigger if you check their fossil record. They were also as robust as a grizzly bear, which is pretty robust. They were not built like average canids (Modern Canines). These were dogs that were built like big cats. Also if your jaws can produce a bite force as strong as a saltwater crocodile, that’s something to be fearful of as another predator since if you get bit you can risk injury, which will decrease your survival. A 100 pound weight advantage doesn’t matter to an Epicyon Haydeni, these things fought carnivores far more dangerous than modern lions like Amphimachairodus or Huracan which were more dangerous competitors of Epicyon. The Borophagus were also another competitor that could have dominated Epicyons over carcasses at times like modern hyenas.
Imagine these fighting massive prehistoric WOLVERINES! The Megalitis ferrox is another supersized mammal that lived over 5 million years ago during the Miocene Epic and weighed up to 264 pounds, albeit in Africa.
Don't the lion members of a pride already do that today? Members cooperate with each other & strategize during a hunt. They use a chaser lion or two to cause chaos & confusion in the herd to recognize & isolate the weakest member.
This dog was no bigger than a jaguar stop this BS big cats have always been bigger than dogs. Bigger bone structure bigger muscles. If this dog was the size of a lion they would have been ambush predators and lack stamina to chase like wolves.
@@Abdi-libaax Epicyons can actually reach weights of 400Ibs or more for the Validus Specimens. Also Epicyons were robust carnivores, as robust as a bear! Epicyons were likely Ambush predators as a 400+ plus canid is not chasing down any prey but having ambush hunting tactics like Lions.
This animal (and other large, derived borophagines) was long assumed to be a scavenger, based on the assumption that hyenas were scavengers; obviously, hyenas are actually predators, and Epicyon is now widely recognized as such as well. However, this doesn't mean the popular view of this animal meets the fossil data. Large borophagines are often assumed to have been ambush predators due to their size and the fact they supposedly had grappling limbs, part of the reason the assumption of them being outcompeted by cats took hold, However, while earlier large borophagines like Aelurodon did have some grappling capability, later ones like Epicyon did not. Their forelimbs were more flexible and mobile than that of canine canids or hyenas, but nowhere near as flexible or mobile as the grappling forelimbs of cats or bears, and their feet are relatively small and have small, blunt claws for running. And while Epicyon was bigger than any other canid, it still wasn't the 170kg monster it was often assumed to be, and other large borophagines were more in line with the sizes of large, cursorial predatory canids alive today, meaning that they wouldn't have been too big to run down prey (not to mention that bears are even less suited to running and can move terrifyingly fast for a surprising distance). Therefore, it's actually more likely that derived borophagines like Epicyon were pursuit predators, relying on their jaws alone to pull large prey to the ground. The dying days of the late miocene brought an end to Epicyon and the dominance of borophagines, as the climate became cooler still. But one derived borophagine- Borophagus Diversidens-managed to squeeze through, and remained successful throughout the next epoch, the Pliocene.
Well, it did share its habbitat with the biggest bear-dog species ever, Amphicyon ingens, which was not just larger than it, but much, MUCH larger, the size of a grizzly bear... While it was capable to hunt, certainly, its ability to crush bones certainly came in handhy, as it could at least part of the time scavenge the remains of the Amphicyon kills for the nutritional bone marrow that bear-dogs could not access.
@@beastmaster0934 they did, Borophagus Diversidens (last species) was about the size of a large spotted hyena and could reach maxes of up to 200Ib+. They lived through the early Pliocene until 1.8 Million years ago when their extinction arrived.
Coyotes certainly do hunt in packs where I live, western NC, between Charlotte and Asheville. Within the last 25 yrs they have driven native foxes, red and grey into the margins and whereas they were silent here, we now hear the exact vocalizations that I lived with on the Idaho/Oregon border. We use mules and donkeys as guard animals for our horses, sheep, cattle etc.
It would never be domesticated. It's more like a hyena and a wolf. It would just be a wild animal, but both could be tamed under the right situation, but it will never be your pet. You can handle them, but you will never own them
@@Mikey-wf9pyyou could definitely domesticate ts it’s a dog if you get one when it’s a baby ur going to be fine it’s literally like the first dog I was thinking about riding ts like a 350 pound dog probably toping 25mph for short periods on time
If we manage to create exponentially large dogs or fighting machines like fighting dogs. Imagine what would happen if humanity used artificial selection on a giant canid. Imagine a guard dog made from Epicyon. Taking into account that dogs have managed to develop a better bite than wolves in some cases, we would also be creating a guard machine.
I feel like Europe needs to watch out on their escapee big cats from zoos and old travelling circuses, apparently we have some spotted in UK, France, Germany, Switzerland and more.
Another awesome video. Just discorved your channel, and I'm loving it. Can you at some point do a video about Jaguars and Leopards, two of my favourite big cat species.
0:20 Thanks for the map of big cat habitat ranges! I had no idea that leopards were so widespread, especially in China. And I had no idea that the range of lions is so horribly limited. Back in Roman times, they were all the way up into north Africa and the Mideast. Finally, I had no idea that pumas were so widespread, all the way down into Brazil, Chile, and Argentina.
The map might be inaccurate when it comes to leopards at the very least. Leopard distribution in India is certainly more than what the map shows and while China historically might have had that distribution shown on the map, today they have only around 400 leopards.
The sequence where you list the animals Latin names and show pictures of the creatures is very helpful. Showing the art and drawings of the creatures helps me to understand and remember them. My wife said the same thing. It makes the different animals in the videos very interesting and easy to remember.
I have a spec evo project called the “Alternate Pleistocene”. Basically, due to various differences (too many to thoroughly explain here), a few lineages from as far back as the middle Miocene persist into modern times in varying capacities, and Borophagines are one of these lineages. Their common name is “Warg” after the ferocious beasts in the world of Middle Earth. And there are plenty of members of this subfamily, including the mighty Epicyon, or “Giant Warg”, one of the apex predators of the Great Plains, which are more like a semi-arid savanna in this timeline.
It's not for nothing that we got along with canids so well. They may never have been terrifying monsters on their own, but they quickly understood that team work open more doors than it close. Their story is the same as our, you live alone as a prey, or become a predator with your pack
Mastiffs are actually recorded as being bigger than Epicyon Haydeni. Specifically English and Tibetan Mastiffs. So the largest canines to ever live are still alive.
If only the American Lion and Epicyon Haydeni were around at the same time period? Would they compete against each other? If so, their battles would be legendary.
They competed against a similar size machairodont named “Amphimachairodus” which was a competitor of Epicyon. They were similar enough to an American Lion to basically be a counterpart of them but from the Miocene. So a battle between the two would be not so one sided as Epicyon were robust and built like bears. Even Tigers have hard time killing Sloth Bears/Sun Bears. Imagine a 400+ 16,000 Newton Bone Crushing Dog as you nemesis? Not something I would want to come face to face with. Don’t believe me? Look up how wide their skull is.
@@S.F157bigger in size are the only way for any dog species to defeat any cat/big cat species. if the dog were smaller or at the same size as the cat/big cat, the dog wouldn’t stand a chance at all. pound for pound any cat/big cat would easily defeat a dog. cat/big cat are built different. their body were miles better than a dog. they have better muscle composition, they are more agile, has faster reaction time, run faster, jump longer and higher. they also has the deadliest killing techniques in animal kingdom which is the neck bite. before the epicyon even have the chance to use that bite force, the mountain lion were already bite the epicyon neck😂
@@m.a.i7324 Epicyons were the dominate carnivores of their time in the late Miocene so technically we can say they were pretty strong to be the dominate carnivores. American lion only has a bite force newtons of 4,450 while Epicyon has 4x the newtons at 16,000. So even if the American Lion weighs more, is it worth the trouble getting a bite by a 16,000 newton dog? Short-Faced bears were the dominate carnivores of late Pleistocene NA, so the American Lion was a Carnivore but weren’t the most dominant of its environment. Sure Lion is more robust than Hyena Dog but Epicyon were as robust as Grizzly Bears which is what American Lion Robustility is compared to.
@@S.F157 You act like epicyon were the only carnivore that dominate in miocine duh. In fact there’s are multiple carnivore that dominate in miocine and one of them are a saber tooth cat called nimravids. Nimravids are only the same size of modern jaguar and mountain lions which is smaller than epicyon. Both nimravids and epicyon lived at the same place which is in north america. If you look at our modern day animal kingdom, the only place that a dog can dominate the area if there are no presence of a big cat. Nimravids are smaller, both of them lived in the same place but nimravids also can dominate literally shows how strong a cat is. The only reason epicyon are one of the dominant carnivores in miocine were because in this period there are not so many big cat species and the big cat species were also smaller. Back to our epicyon vs American lion topic, max weight that an epicyon can reach were only 170 kg and max weight of American lion were 250 kg. As i said in my earlier comment, the only way that a dog can defeat any cat are if the dog were bigger which in this case American lion are way bigger. Cats are way faster than a dog dude that dog bite force is no use when the neck of the epicyon already get bitten by american lion.
@@m.a.i7324 false false and more false. Nimravids were around when Epicyon was the dominate carnivore but not all Nimravids were small. Amphimachairodus (Machairodont) & Barbourofelis (Nimravidae) were large feliforms and both were larger than Epicyons at their maxes, but Epicyon still coexisted with them. The reason is because they (Epicyons) were dominant carnivores. Epicyons reached maxes of 181.44kg (400Ib) at their maxes if we include the Validus specimens (Epicyons that grew bigger over time). They were evolving to get larger before their extinction, showing their dominance. With a strong bite force I don’t think most carnivores would bother with this fella. When it comes to most canids compared to large Felids, felids tend to be more robust. But Epicyon was a whole different kind of canid, big, strong bite force, robust, it was ambush predator (indicating it was probably too heavy to run after prey; the Haydeni species at least).
Man, I saw a show years ago that broke down how wolves came to rival big cats as sucessful predators. It was excellent, and I've never been able to find it. It described how pack hunting worked and how it allowed them to compete despite size and tooth "disadvantage" (when compared to cats).
I have a suggestion for a video , can you do one on the giant hyracoid titanohyrax ultimus ? It was one of the weirdest large herbivores of its formation and I think its pretty interesting and underrepresented in media ( it could reach 1.300 kilos ! Thats the weight of a male giraffe ! )
Video idea: list the most successfully reigning animals based on millions of years within the fossil record. Perhaps separate videos for predators and prey. I think this would further broaden our perspectives on how truly successful these animals are. The Epicyon and Barinasuchus for example reigned for quite a bit, while many popular and perhaps overrated theropods reigned for much shorter. Allosaurus did quite well for a theropod. Many more discussions can be made by analyzing these statistics, though I understand it is difficult to get reliable results based on the fossil record. What kind of predators reigned longest? Are there any common traits between them (pack hunting, scavenging, size, etc.)? Do certain families have longer success rates (Canidae vs Felidae etc.)? List of potential video topics can go on and on from there!
Other than a 130 pound rott/bernese mix, all the dogs I've owned have been about 250 pounds. My English Mastiff, Newfoundland mix was very gentle but looked like a giant pit and had amazingly powerful jaws.
Interesting vid....This was something I always wondered about when I was a kid. I wondered why the biggest dog (the wolf) was comparable in size to leopards, and how come there were no dog counterparts (size wise) to jaguars, lions and tigers. Of course, none of the books I had back then mentioned Epicyon, or, if they did, no mention of its size was made. And back then, lots of things weren't common knowledge, even to those like me who had such interests. No one knew what a velociraptor was, much less Epicyon!
Isn’t a Saint Bernard bigger than a wolf? Some of them look comparable to lions in size 😮 though I think that’s not natural it probably required selective breeding
fun fact coyotes dont typically hunt with eachother because their hunting partner of choice is the oppossom which has a better sense of smell and can find food sources under ground, which the fox is better equipt to dig. symbiosis is awesome
09:41 what the heck is that scorpion mosquito hybrid?
4 месяца назад
Came to the comments for this. Number one: it's not a vertebrate Number two: WTF is it!!! I've watched a lot of nature documentaries and tons of RU-vid nature documentaries in my 50 years, still clueless. Maybe it's an AI generated creature.
Lived in Yosemite National Park for 3 years. I’ve seen two huge pumas or mountain lions there. But saw a HUGE black bear. Maybe 2k pounds. Cats were near 200 lbs easy.
Canidae is most definitely all throughout South America. Not sure why you showed a map of their distribution being empty there. In fact, they have some of the most primitive and divergent canids, like the bush dog, short-eared dog, and maned wolf.
Sure, it was huge but so was everything else. I look at a Tibetan Mastiff or a St Bernard alongside a Shih Tzu and its difficult to believe they are the same species. We still have several dogs today that were bred specifically to deter wolves - that is not an animal you want to mess with.
Yes he said that they were comonly called ''big-cats'' even tho they aren't part of the panthera genus wich is needed to be part of the Big cats. What he meant was that genetically they are ''small-cats'' but they are closer to big cats from their size, behaviors and place in the food chain.
I've been fascinated by dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals from I was a child. Scientist can only speculate what these creatures ate, how they hunted and which modern day animal they are related to with the help of fossils and comparing those fossils to modern day animals. Mystery these creatures provide makes us keep begging for more and we will never get bored.
wouldn't it be awesome if we could know what these animals sounded like!?!! For example the hyena just imagine only ever finding their bones we wouldn't be able to tell that they make a squeely noise and yip like they do, they don't bark but look like they might. I think it would be so cool if we were able to know what some of the extinct animals did to communicate.
Coyotes typically hang around their parents for a year or two before they strike out on their own. Very typical to see 4-7 in a family working to feed the pups. Then after those pups mature, the older pups take off, the ones from the year prior. So, I view that as incorrect. Prior to the westward expansion, with wolves, ruling the mid-west, coyotes ran in packs of up to 30-40, to protect their dens from wolves. My Grandpa talked about coyotes running in larger packs back when he was younger & he hunted them for fur back in the 20's-60's with coyote dogs. Coyotes not running in large packs is probably a more recent change in their behavior quite possibly due to hunting pressure from people. On a side note, I grew up not far from where the first fossil was found.
