Eucyon sp. (Mammalia, Carnivora, Canidae, Caninae), an early dog from Mill-Langenboom, The Netherlands

Fossil remains of terrestrial mammals were frequently collected in sandpit ‘De Kuilen’ in Mill-Langenboom (The Netherlands) during the past decades. Recently a carnassial of a fossil canid was discovered in the collection of one of the many private collectors that used to visit the sandpit. Provisionally the tooth was identified as a ‘wolf-like’ canid, but in a more elaborate and comparative study it turned out to be a more primitive dog belonging to the yet rather poorly known genus Eucyon. This carnassial from Mill-Langenboom documents for the first time a representative of this genus in the Netherlands and NW Europe. It also might be one of the latest occurrences anticipating the extinction of early dogs of this genus in the Late Pliocene.