''Megacyon merriami'', or Merriam's dog, was a prehistoric canid that lived in the early/middle

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

(about 800-300 thousand years ago). Its fossilized remains have been found on the island of

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

. Its scientific name means "Merriam's large dog".

Description

The fossil remains of this canid are incomplete, hence they do not provide an accurate reconstruction. The species appears to have been diverged from ''

Xenocyon ''Xenocyon'' ("strange dog") is an extinct subgenus of ''Canis''. The group includes ''Canis'' (''Xenocyon'') ''africanus'', ''Canis'' (''Xenocyon'') ''antonii'' and ''Canis'' (''Xenocyon'') ''falconeri'' that gave rise to ''Canis'' (''Xenocyon'' ...

'', along with the

African wild dog The African wild dog (''Lycaon pictus''), also called the painted dog or Cape hunting dog, is a wild canine which is a native species to sub-Saharan Africa. It is the largest wild canine in Africa, and the only extant member of the genus '' Ly ...

Sardinian dhole The Sardinian dhole (''Cynotherium sardous'') is an extinct insular canid which was endemic to what is now the Mediterranean islands of Sardinia (Italy) and Corsica (France), which were joined for much of the Pleistocene. It went extinct when h ...

and ''

Mececyon trinilensis ''Mececyon trinilensis'', the Trinil dog, is an extinct canid species that lived in Indonesia during the Pleistocene. Description The body size of ''Mececyon trinilensis'' been estimated to be about 22 kg. This size is the result of insul ...

'', another extinct Javanese canid. The Merriam's dog had a set of strong, robust teeth. Its size probably exceeded that of the extant

References

* Schutt, 1973. Pleistozane Caniden (Carnivora, Mammalia) aus Java. Verhandelingen Koninklijke Akademie van der Wetenschappen (Series B), 76: 446–71. * Lyras G.A., Van der Geer A.A.E., Rook L., 2010. Body size of insular carnivores: evidence from the fossil record. Journal of Biogeography, 37 (6): 1007–21. Extinct animals of Indonesia Pleistocene carnivorans Prehistoric canines {{canid-extinct-stub