Epicyon: Miocene's bear-sized bone-crushing canid
Epicyon haydeni was a bear-sized early canid (about 2.5 m long, 1 m tall, ~125 kg) that specialized in crushing bones during the Miocene across North America. A top predator among borophagines, it likely hunted in bursts with powerful jaws and may have hunted in packs. It went extinct around 2.5 million years ago, with cats migrating into North America as a key factor that outcompeted borophagines and helped shape the rise of modern dogs and wolves.