Andean wolf
Species of mammals (cryptid)
The Andean wolf (previously described as Dasycyon hagenbecki, though this is no longer an accepted taxon) is a purported South American canine that is falsely labelled a wolf. Various tests on the singular pelt have failed to provide a conclusive identity.
History
In 1927, Lorenz Hagenbeck bought one of three pelts from a dealer in Buenos Aires who claimed that they had come from a wild dog of the Andes. The pelt ended up in Munich, where the German mammalogist Ingo Krumbiegel examined it in 1940. Krumbiegel published two papers describing the animal and giving it the scientific name of Dasycyon hagenbecki. The American zoologist Howard J. Stains supported Krumbeigel's new genus Dasycyon. Other mammalogists believed that the skin was that of a domestic dog.
In 1954, Fritz Dieterlen published results comparing samples of hair taken from the Munich pelt with hair from various canids. He found that there were significant similarities between the Munich pelt hair and German Shepherd hair.
Skull
In 1935, Krumbiegel is said to have studied a skull supposedly similar to that of a maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus) but larger and reportedly obtained from outside of the range of the maned wolf.
“Andean wolf” enters the record as species of mammals (cryptid). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Andean, wolf and Species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Andean wolf” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Andean, wolf and Species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2164302. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1927, 1940, 1954 and 1935.
A general summary may omit uncertainty, sample limits or methodological disagreement that is explicit in the technical record. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Andean wolf” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.