''Dukecynus'' is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of meat-eating

metatherian Metatheria is a mammalian clade that includes all mammals more closely related to marsupials than to placentals. First proposed by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1880, it is a more inclusive group than the marsupials; it contains all marsupials as well ...

belonging to the order

Sparassodonta Sparassodonta (from Ancient Greek, Greek to tear, rend; and , gen.

, ' The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark () in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline ...

tooth) is an extinct order (biology), order of carnivore, carnivorous metatherian mammals native to South America, related to modern marsupials. They were once con ...

, which lived in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

during the

Middle Miocene The Middle Miocene is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages: the Langhian and Serravallian stages. The Middle Miocene is preceded by the Early Miocene. The sub-epoch lasted from 15.97 ± 0.05 Ma to 11.608 ± 0.005 Ma (million y ...

( Laventan), between about 13.8 and 11.8 million years ago.Goin, F. J. 1997 New clues for understanding Neogene marsupial radiations. In ''A history of the neotropical fauna. Vertebrate paleobiology of the Miocene in Colombia'' (ed. R. F. Kay, R. H. Maden, R. L. Cifelli & J. Flynn), pp. 185–204. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. The name of the genus meaning "Duke dog", for

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

and the Greek word ''cynos'', dog, for the pretended similarity of this animal with dogs. A single species known so far, ''Dukecynus magnus''. The species name "magnus" derives from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for big, to reflect their great size.

Description

''Dukecynus'' is only known from its holotype, IGM 251149, a heavily damaged partial skull preserving parts of the lower and upper jaw as well as associated fragments of the

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

. This specimen was discovered at the Konzentrat-Lagerstätte La Venta in the

Honda Group is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a product ...

, Huila and Tolima in

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. A second fragmentary specimen from La Venta, cataloged as UCMP 39250, consisting of a fragmentary skull and parts of the

humerus The humerus (; ) is a long bone in the arm that runs from the shoulder to the elbow. It connects the scapula and the two bones of the lower arm, the radius and ulna, and consists of three sections. The humeral upper extremity consists of a roun ...

and

femur The femur (; ), or thigh bone, is the proximal bone of the hindlimb in tetrapod vertebrates. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates with ...

from a juvenile individual, referred to "cf. Arctodictis" by Marshall (1978) could also belong to ''Dukecynus'' or a similar species. Although the affinities of this species have never been formally analysed, ''Dukecynus'' is generally considered to be a basal borhyaenoid, a

paraphyletic In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...

group of sparassodonts that includes genera like ''

Lycopsis ''Lycopsis'' is an extinct genus of South American metatherian, that lived during the Miocene in Argentina and Colombia. History Although not named until 1927, Florentino Ameghino described a species now seen as synonymous with ''Lycopsis tor ...

'' and ''

Prothylacynus ''Prothylacinus'' is an extinct genus of South American metatherian, that lived during the Early Miocene. Distribution Fossils of ''Prothylacinus'' have been found in the Friasian Río Frias Formation of Chile and the Santacrucian Santa Cruz ...

'' that cannot be assigned to one of the major borhyaenoid families like Borhyaenidae or

Thylacosmilidae Thylacosmilidae is an extinct Family (biology), family of metatherian predators, related to the modern marsupials, which lived in South America between the Miocene and Pliocene epochs. Like other South American mammalian predators that lived prio ...

. Compared to other basal borhyaenoids, ''Dukecynus'' had a long, narrow snout and was relatively large, with some estimates suggesting this animal weighed up to 68 kilograms (150 lbs).Stephen Wroe, Christine Argot and Christopher Dickman
On the rarity of big fierce carnivores and primacy of isolation and area: tracking large mammalian carnivore diversity on two isolated continents
''Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B'' (2004) 271, 1203–1211 1203, doi 10.1098/rspb.2004.2694 ''Dukecynus'' was probably the largest mammalian predator as well as the largest sparassodont at La Venta.

References

External links

Marsupial `dogs', `bears', `sabre-tooths' and `weasels' of island South America: meet the borhyaenoids, by Darren Naish

Бестиарий - Доисторические животные - Prehistoric Fauna
(naturalistic reconstruction by Roman Uchytel) {{Taxonbar, from=Q5313161 Sparassodonts Miocene mammals of South America Laventan Neogene Colombia Fossils of Colombia Honda Group, Colombia Fossil taxa described in 1997 Prehistoric mammal genera