The Pliocene canid Cerdocyon avius was not the type of fox that we thought

Abstract

During the 1980s, a Pliocene canid from Baja California Sur, Mexico, was described as a new Cerdocyon species, C. avius. Whereas some investigators believe that C. avius was related to the origin of South American foxes of the tribe Cerdocyonina, others suggested that it is related to members of the tribe Vulpini. Our observations and analyses confirm that it is a vulpine with a morphological combination of features that has not been described previously: marked subangular lobe in the hemimandible, m1 hypoconulid is practically absent, and the m3 is single-cusped. We propose Ferrucyon, gen. nov., as a genus including at present one species, F. avius. In the phylogenetic analysis, this species is related to North American Metalopex macconnelli, and to the Eurasian Nyctereutes spp., which creates a relationship between the foxes of the Old and New World.