Scientific name Dasycyon hagenbecki Rank Species | Higher classification Dasycyon | |
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Similar MacFarlane's bear, Nguma‑monene, Bergman's bear, Canidae, Kting voar | ||
The Andean Wolf, or Hagenbeck's Wolf is an unsubstantiated wolf-like canid, reportedly from the Andes.
Contents
Pelt
In 1927, Lorenz Hagenbeck bought one of three pelts from a dealer in Buenos Aires who claimed that they had come from a wild dog of the Andes. When Dr. Ingo Krumbiegel studied the skin in Germany in 1940, he concluded that it belonged to a new and still undescribed species. Scientists in the 1960s discovered that the pelt belonged to a domestic dog. A 2000 attempt at DNA analysis of the remaining pelt at Munich’s zoological museum failed because it was contaminated with human, dog, wolf, and pig DNA, and had been chemically treated (Eberhart, 2002).
Skull
In 1947, Krumbiegel connected the pelt with a skull he had discovered about ten years earlier. He claimed the skull was 31 centimeters long and belonged to an omnivorous canid substantially larger than a Maned wolf, as Maned wolf skulls are smaller, about 24 cm. He published a paper describing the animal and suggesting a scientific name for it: Dasycyon hagenbecki, though the skull had allegedly been lost in 1945 during World War II and was not available for peer review.
