Actiocyon

Actiocyon
Temporal range:
Part of the holotype of Actiocyon parverratis.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Ailuridae
Genus: Actiocyon
Stock, 1947
Type species
Actiocyon leardi
Stock, 1947
Other species
  • A. parverratis Smith et al., 2016

Actiocyon is an extinct genus of ailurid that lived in western North America during the Middle Miocene. It was named by Chester Stock in 1947 for the type species Actiocyon leardi. A second species, Actiocyon parverratis, was described in 2016. No other species have been assigned to Actiocyon in the past, and fossil material assigned to the current species is rare.

Both species of Actiocyon were small carnivores, with A. leardi known to live in a coastal environment while A. parverratis lived in a high-altitude temperate forest. They differ from the closely-related European genus Alopecocyon in the precise characteristics of the teeth, and from Simocyon in their overall smaller size. A. leardi may have weighed about 7 kilograms (15 lb), and A. parverratis was even smaller.