Actiocyon leardi

Actiocyon leardi is an extinct small carnivoran of the red panda family Ailuridae and the type species of the genus Actiocyon, which lived in western North America during the Middle Miocene. Robert Leard collected a partial carnivoran skull in Ventura County, California, in 1938, and Chester Stock named the genus and species in 1947 from this single specimen, found in rocks of the Caliente Formation. The species name honors Leard, and the genus name joins Greek words for coast and dog. Stock first thought it a canid, and later authors treated it as a species of Alopecocyon until the description of a second species in 2016 confirmed Actiocyon as a separate genus of the subfamily Simocyoninae. It may have weighed about 7 kilograms and lived in a very wet coastal environment.