Eucyon, TEDFORD & QIU, 1996

Valenciano, Alberto, Morales, Jorge & Govender, Romala, 2022, Eucyon khoikhoi sp. nov. (Carnivora: Canidae) from Langebaanweg ‘ E’ Quarry (early Pliocene, South Africa): the most complete African canini from the Mio-Pliocene, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 194, pp. 366-394 : 369

GENUS EUCYON TEDFORD & QIU, 1996

1993 Eucyon nov. gen. (Tedford & Qiu, in stampa), Rook: 12.

1996 Eucyon nov. gen. Tedford & Qiu: 27.

2009 Eucyon Tedford & Qiu , in press, Rook: 726.

Type species: Canis davisi Merriam, 1911 .

Diagnosis: In Tedford & Qiu (1996), revised by Tedford et al. (2009) and Werdelin et al. (2014b).

Remarks: Tedford & Qiu (1996) recognized that with Eucyon they were creating a paraphyletic taxon, due to its primitive position at the base of the Tribe Canini . Despite this, the number of species attributed to the genus has been increasing progressively ( Morales et al., 2005; Spassov & Rook, 2006; García, 2008; Montoya et al., 2009; Rook, 2009; Werdelin et al., 2014b; Bartolini Lucenti & Rook, 2020). Recently Zrzavý et al. (2018) performed a phylogenetic analysis of living and extinct Caninae using morphological, developmental, ecological, behavioural and molecular characters. Only three Eucyon species were included in their analysis: E. davisi , type species of the genus, and two Asian species: E. zhoui from the Lower Pliocene and E. marinae from the Upper Pliocene. Eucyon davisi appears as the basal species of the entire Canini clade, while E. zhoui and E. marinae nest in a paraphyletic basal clade to the subtribe Canina . These same authors point out the paraphyletic character of the genus Canis , whose species are grouped into at least two different and distant clades.