Amphicyon [SEP] parent taxon
Amphicyon
Amphicyon ("ambiguous dog") is an extinct genus of large carnivorous bone-crushing mammals, popularly known as bear dogs, of the family Amphicyonidae, subfamily Amphicyoninae, from the Burdigalian Epoch until the late Pliocene. They ranged over North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa from 16.9—2.6 Ma ago, existing approximately .
Morphology.
"Amphicyon" was the typical bear-dog amphicyonid with morphology similar to both bears and dogs. With its robust build and maximum length of 2.5 m (8
Taxon in disguise
In bacteriology, a taxon in disguise is a species, genus or higher unit of biological classification whose evolutionary history reveals has evolved from another unit of similar or lower rank, making the parent unit paraphyletic. This happens when rapid evolution makes a new species appear radically different from the ancestral group, so that it is not (initially) recognised as belonging to the parent phylogenetic group, leaving the latter an evolutionary grade.
While the term is from bacteriology, parallel examples are found throughout the tree of