2:00

The bushdog that is actually a canid

2:02

is also from South America, but

2:04

we're going to start not with the

2:06

living animal, but with an extinct

2:08

one. Back in the

2:10

19th century, when it was possible

2:13

to specialize in several fields of

2:15

science at once, a Danish man

2:17

named Peter Wilhelm Lund made a

2:20

name for himself as an archaeologist,

2:22

a paleontologist, and a zoologist. He

2:25

moved to Brazil in South America in 1825,

2:29

went back to Europe in 1829 to

2:31

finish his doctoral degree, but returned to Brazil in

2:33

1832 for the rest of his life. He

2:38

just really liked it there. He

2:40

described hundreds of Brazilian plants

2:42

and animals scientifically, and is

2:44

most well known for his

2:46

studies of extinct ice age

2:48

megafauna, along with prehistoric cave

2:50

paintings. One of the

2:53

animals he described was an unusual canid.

2:55

He discovered its skull in a cave in 1839, so he

2:58

called it the cave wolf. That

3:02

makes it sound scary and impressive,

3:04

but it was actually a fairly

3:06

small animal. He gave

3:08

it the scientific name Spathos

3:10

passivirus, which means cave wolf

3:12

hunter. In 1842,

3:14

Lund described a living canid with a

3:17

similar skull, although its teeth weren't

3:19

as big and it was even smaller

3:21

than the cave wolf. But he

3:23

didn't quite make the connection, and

3:26

placed the living animal in a

3:28

completely different genus. In

3:30

1843, another scientist renamed the animal,

3:32

but again placed it in a

3:35

completely different genus from the cave

3:37

wolf. It's not unusual

3:39

for an animal to be studied

3:42

repeatedly, and its taxonomy debated by

3:44

various scientists as they try to

3:46

figure out what the animal's closest

3:49

relations are. But in the case

3:51

of the bush dog, it kept getting shuffled

3:53

from genus to genus every few years,

3:55

so that in the 180 years since it

3:57

was originally regionally

4:00

described, it's been placed and

4:02

replaced in nine different genera,

4:05

until it was finally renamed

4:07

Spaethos Venaticus and recognized as

4:09

a close relation or possibly

4:12

the direct descendant of the

4:14

cave wolf. Although

4:16

the bush dog's ancestors lived in

4:18

the highlands of Brazil, the bush

4:21

dog alive today is adapted for

4:23

forests. It has partially webbed

4:25

toes that help it walk on soft

4:27

soil around water, and it spins a

4:29

lot of time in water. It's

4:32

brown all over, although some individuals have

4:34

a patch of lighter brown fur on

4:36

the throat, and its legs and tail

4:38

are often darker. Puppies are

4:40

black all over. Its legs

4:42

are short, and it has a short snout

4:45

and small ears. It actually

4:47

really does look similar in many

4:49

ways to the other bush dog,

4:51

the terra, although its tail is

4:53

shorter. The bush dog

4:55

is incredibly shy and lives in remote

4:57

areas that are hard for humans to

5:00

explore, so we actually don't know a

5:02

whole lot about it. It's

5:04

so shy that it's even hard to catch

5:06

on camera traps. It's a

5:08

social animal that sometimes hunts by

5:10

itself and sometimes in groups, and

5:12

it eats pretty much anything it

5:14

can catch. Its main

5:17

prey is rodents, especially large

5:19

rodents like capybaras, but it

5:21

also hunts peccaries, tapirs, and

5:23

the large flightless bird called

5:25

the rhea. Part of

5:27

the reason the bush dog kept getting

5:29

moved from genus to genus is that

5:31

it's not very similar to other canids.

5:33

The fact that it even looks a

5:35

lot like a mustelid gives you an

5:38

idea of how strange it appears. It

5:40

has a cute puppy face since its

5:43

snout and ears are so small, and

5:45

its long chunky body and short legs

5:47

makes it look a little like a

5:50

corgi. It's only been recently that scientists

5:52

have identified one of its closest relations,

5:54

and it's a canid you might not

5:56

expect. It's also the canid

5:58

suggested by Mia. they

8:00

discovered that the smell was actually coming

8:02

from the maned wolf exhibit. This

8:05

will never not be funny to me. You

8:08

can find Strange Animals

8:11

Podcast at strangeanimalspodcast.blueberry.net. That's

8:14

blueberry without any E's. If you

8:17

have questions, comments, or suggestions

8:19

for future episodes, email

8:21

us at [email protected].

8:25

We also have a Patreon at

8:27

patreon.com/strangeanimalspodcast if you'd like to

8:29

support us for as little

8:32

as $1 a month and

8:34

get monthly bonus episodes. Thanks

8:37

for listening! It's

8:41

also really good at catching spiny

8:43

rats. There goes my

8:45

stomach. Growl, growl, growl. Helps

8:48

keep other animals away from the

8:50

maned wolf's food cache. Blah, bloop,

8:52

bloop.