Image source: http://carnivoraforum.com/topic/9860503/1/
This is so cool: I found a write-up about prehistoric coyotes – specifically a species called Johnston’s Coyote (Canis lepophagus) or the Hare-Eating Wolf. I’m going to share directly from the article as this is way out of my area of expertise, and is far more informative than I could manage in my own summary.
The Johnston’s Coyote is an extinct species of canidae which was endemic to much of North America and lived from the Miocene epoch through Early Pleistocene, 10.3—1.8 Mya. The species existed for approximately 8.5 million years. It is one of the more basal species of Canis, having existed before most of the major classes split. It was a small, narrow skulled canid which may have given rise to grey wolves and coyotes. Some larger, broader skulled C. lepophagus fossils found in northern Texas may represent the ancestral stock from which true wolves derive. …It was quite like the modern coyote, but with somewhat shorter limbs.
Paleoecology & Range
Later in its temporal range, it lived alongside the Dire Wolf (1.80 Ma—11,000 years ago), Canis lepophagus (10.3—1.8 Ma), Armbruster’s Wolf (1.8 Mya—300,000 years ago), Canis rufus (1-2 Ma-present), and the Gray Wolf (3.5 Ma—present). Its small size meant that it was probably a predator of small mammals like rodents, but it may have supplemented its diet by scavenging the carcasses of animals killed by other larger predators of the times.
The Johnston’s Coyote was named by Johnston in 1938. The first fossil record was found in Cita Canyon, Texas. Subsequent discoveries of specimens were found in 4 other Texas sites, Tonuco Mountain, New Mexico, western Washington Sante Fe River, Florida, Black Ranch in northern California, sites in Nebraska, Idaho, Utah, and Oklahoma.
Image source: http://carnivoraforum.com/topic/9860503/1/
See the full article here: http://carnivoraforum.com/topic/9860503/1/. I will do some more digging around with this, and plan on adding this information to my page on the history of coyotes.
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