Dogs of South America

Though less well known than giant ground sloths, South America's Pleistocene megafauna also included a few species of now-extinct canids. According to recent phylogenetic analyses, these three were closely related to the living bush dog (Speothos venaticus), though they were much bigger, somewhere between a red fox and a grey wolf in size.

The exact taxonomy of these animals is still unresolved. The third species is still known as 'Canis' gezi, though it's clearly not closely related to Canis. Their names might change, when someone gets around to revise them.

I reconstruted these three based on nice skull photographs found in the plates at the end of this book: books.google.fi/books?id=LD5BV…
I tried to show their resemblage to the bush dog and maned wolf, their second-closest living relative.