Nyctereutes
Sign in to saveNyctereutes ( [] 'night' + [] 'wanderer') is a genus of Asian canid with two extant species, the raccoon dogs: the common raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) and the Japanese raccoon dog (Nyctereutes viverrinus).
Species
GENUS
- KingdomAnimalia
- PhylumChordata
- ClassMammalia
- OrderCarnivora
- FamilyCanidae
via GBIF
Museum specimens
- Specimen records
- 3
- Family
- Canidae
- Collections
- NHMUK, MNHN
- Recorded in
- North Korea, Japan
Wikidata facts
Show 7 more facts
- taxon rank
- genus
- taxon name
- Nyctereutes
- Commons category
- Nyctereutes
- topic's main category
- Category:Nyctereutes
- described by source
- Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
- taxon common name
- Tanuki
- temporal range start
- Late Miocene
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
6 sectionsContents
- Characteristics
- Species
- Extant species
- Fossil species
- References
- Further reading
Nyctereutes ( [] 'night' + [] 'wanderer') is a genus of Asian canid with two extant species, the raccoon dogs: the common raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) and the Japanese raccoon dog (Nyctereutes viverrinus).
Nyctereutes entered the fossil record 5.5 million years ago (Mya) in northern China. It was one of the earliest canines in the Old World. All but two species became extinct before the end of the Pleistocene. A study suggests that the evolution of Nyctereutes was influenced by environmental and climatic changes, such as the expansion and contraction of forests and the fluctuations of temperature and precipitation. The two extant species diverged around 0.5 million years ago, which is before the last glacial period of the Pleistocene.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Nyctereutes” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.