More Information
Xenocyon ("strange dog") is an extinct group of canids, either considered a distinct genus or a subgenus of Canis. The ancestral condition for canids is to have five toes on their forelimbs, but by the Early Pleistocene this lineage had reduced this to four, which is also a characteristic feature of the modern African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus).
Canis lupus, the Pleistocene Grey Wolf, was the Ice Age species that first gave rise to a domestic population. They survived long after many other large mammals in that time period by changing their diet. Research shows that they adapted their diet over thousands of years, shifting from hunting horses primarily in the Ice Age to Caribou and Moose in more modern times.
