Chrysocyon brachyurus
(Illiger, 1815) · speciesAt a glance
Sources12 archives
Databases and archives Chrysocyon brachyurus's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation18 languages↗
Animal Diversity WebUniv. of Michigan MZspecies account↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility1 113 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI74 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics121 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
The maned wolf (scientifically known as Chrysocyon brachyurus) is a large canine of South America. The maned wolf is found in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay and is almost extinct in Uruguay. Its markings resemble those of foxes, but it is neither a fox nor a wolf. It is the only species in the genus Chrysocyon (meaning "golden dog"). It is the largest canine in South America, weighing and up to at the withers. Its long, thin legs and dense reddish coat give it an unmistakable appearance. The maned wolf is a crepuscular and omnivorous animal adapted to the open environments of the South American savanna, with an important role in the seed dispersal of fruits, especially the wolf apple (Solanum lycocarpum). The maned wolf is a solitary animal. It communicates primarily by scent marking, but also gives a loud call known as "roar-barking". This mammal lives in open and semi-open habitats, especially grasslands with scattered bushes and trees, in the Cerrado of south, central-west, and southeastern Brazil; Paraguay; northern Argentina; and Bolivia east and north of the Andes, and far southeastern Peru (Pampas del Heath only). It is very rare in Uruguay, possibly being displaced completely through loss of habitat. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists it as near threatened, while it is considered a vulnerable species by the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources. In 2011, a female maned wolf, run over by a truck, underwent stem cell treatment at the , this being the first recorded case of the use of stem cells to heal injuries in a wild animal.Boyle, Rebecca. Injured Brazilian Wolf Is First Wild Animal Treated With Stem Cells. Popular Science, January 15, 2011. Retrieved 2021-08-06.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology3
Life cycle & reproduction7
Diet & foraging7
Habitat & environment2
Physiology & chemistry2
Other traits3
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Chrysocyon brachyurus has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Chrysocyon brachyurus carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Chromosomes & ploidyhow the DNA is packaged
2n is the full chromosome count in a normal body cell; n is a gamete (egg or sperm), which carries half. Ploidy is how many complete chromosome sets each cell holds — 2× (diploid) is typical for animals, while higher levels (polyploidy) are common in plants. Click any value below to see the underlying records and sources.
2n 761×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Chrysocyon brachyurus. Above itBeside it, each dot is one dated fossil find — few enough to count, so they are drawn individually rather than as a graph. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil. Where the DNA reaches further back than the oldest fossil, the gap is hatched: the ghost lineage. It means the lineage was already out there, but has left us nothing we have dug up yet.
How it livedPBDB
Record type1 121 records
Origin
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions9 of 17 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| APN-AR-MFAlocation not on record | 14 |
| Cambridge, US | 10 |
| Chicago, US | 10 |
| Buenos Aires, AR | 6 |
| UEGlocation not on record | 5 |
| Brussels, BE | 3 |
| Denver, US | 2 |
| Geneva, CH | 2 |
| Pontificia Universidade do Rio Grande do Sul, Laboratorio de Biologia Genomica e Molecularlocation not on record | 2 |
| RBINS-Scientific Heritagelocation not on record | 2 |
| University of the South Pacificlocation not on record | 2 |
| Seattle, US | 2 |
| UFSMlocation not on record | 1 |
| INMAlocation not on record | 1 |
| California State University, Long Beachlocation not on record | 1 |
| Los Angeles, US | 1 |
| Berkeley, US | 1 |
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Where the DNA of Chrysocyon brachyurus was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.