Description

Canis dirus
Late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean)
Rancho La Brea Formation
Maricopa Tar Pits
Kern County, California, USA
15mm premolar on plastic stand from the famous Tar Pits of California.

Mammal, Canidae, carnivoran

Here is a premolar of Canis dirus, the dire wolf – one of five species from the dog family known from tar pit localities in California. It was about the size of a modern gray wolf but was stockier and larger-skulled. That’s the kind of carnivore we might expect to survive the ice ages and yet of the five canids, only the dire wolf is extinct.

Canis dirus remains are known from the Americas. It appeared during in the Early Pleistocene and died out around the end of the epoch.