bone-crushing dog

plural bone-crushing dogs

1. biologyAny of a subfamily (Borophaginae) of large extinct canids of North America, noted for powerful teeth and jaws.

   Bone-crushing dogs, which are only distantly related to living wolves and coyotes, possessed heavy skulls and jaws and large, broad teeth.

   2010, Rex Buchanan, Kansas Geology: An Introduction to Landscapes, Rocks, Minerals, and Fossils, University Press of Kansas, page 150

   2 more examples

   Carnivore damage and age distribution of the bones of the rhinoceros Teleoceras suggest that the bone-crushing dog Osteoborus, or a related carnivore, significantly influenced the accumulation of some of the vertebrate fossils.

   1990, National Geographic Research

   He also saw many bone splinters which appeared to have been worked by humans. (We now know that they were fractured by an extinct family of bone-crushing dogs)

   2002, Donald R. Prothero, Robert M. Schoch, Associate Professor of Science and Mathematics Robert M Schoch, Horns, Tusks, and Flippers: The Evolution of Hoofed Mammals, JHU Press, →ISBN, page 36