User:MaxGatlin/Epicyon

The molars of Epicoyn haydeni were grindstone-like teeth that allow for a canid diet that includes both meat and plant and insects. The proportional size of an animal's molars is a great measure of the nutritional diversity of its diet. Based on fossilized feces and its robust teeth and jaw muscles it is believed to have consumed large amounts of bone and share a similar digestive tract to modern day hyenas due to their ability to break down bones. . They are also believed to be social hunters since Epicyon haydeni is very prevalent in the fossil record as one of the most common meat-eaters in North America during the late Miocene Epoch period. The deadly bite of a Epicyon haydeni was delivered by the canine teeth, which are placed near the front of the upper and lower jaws, the shortening of the jaws can be an effective method for getting the canines closer to the mandibular condyle, thereby increasing the biting force.

Fossil specimens range from Florida to California and have been found in Nebraska, Montana, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Idaho, Oregon, Arizona within the United State s. As well as in Alberta, Canada.

Epicyon haydeni's small clavicle, flexible back, and digitigrade posture are all postcranial features shared with other canids and are likely adaptations designed to increase the animal's stride length. It seems from examinations of the limb proportions and toughness of the skeleton that Epicyon haydeni was less cursorial than hyaenas or modern wolves but more cursorial than other borophagine species like Aelurodon. Unlike hyenas, Epicyon haydeni must have used their rearmost lower premolar (p4) and upper carnassial (P4) to crack large bones (ibid.). Smaller bones and bone fragments were likely crushed with the carnassials and postcarnassial molars just as in extant canids. Due to its bigger size and heavier, less gracile skeleton, Epicyon haydeni was less cursorial and unable to run as long a distance as Epicyon saevus. Instead it relied on bursts of speed and social hunting strategies .