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The Painted Dog can trace its ancestry back some 40 million years to Miacis, a small carnivorous animal with short legs and a
long body. The Civet is a direct descendant from this animal.
Around
30 million years ago two other animals Daphaenus, the Bear dog, and Cynodictus
emerged.
Descendants
of Daphaenus developed into enormous animals around 10 million
years ago and eventually evolved as Bears.
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Cynodictus
had partially retractile claws for an arboreal existence and was Civet like.
From this animal, Temnocyon evolved and from this the modern day dogs of
Africa, Lycaon, and India, Dhole, and the South
American bush dog, Speothos, evolved.
Cynodesmus
evolved in North America as huge hyena-like animals, but not related to Hyaenas,
of which Borophagus, Hyaenadon and Hyaenognathus are extinct.
An
offshoot from Cynodesmus named Tomarctus is the ancestor
from which wolves, dogs, foxes and fennecs developed
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