Eucyon odessanus ( Odintzov, 1967 )

Rook, Lorenzo, 2009, The wide ranging genus Eucyon Tedford & Qiu, 1996 (Mammalia, Carnivora, Canidae, Canini) in the Mio-Pliocene of the Old World, Geodiversitas 31 (4), pp. 723-741 : 731

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 Rook (1993) considered this material, as well as the unpublished skull from the early Pliocene of Etulia in Moldova (kept in the collections of the Institute of Geology in Moscow) as belonging to the genus Eucyon .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).