The short-eared dog is a wild canid of the Amazon lowlands, where fish is a common food.
Its ears are short with rounded tips, its legs are relatively short, and its long tail is bushy. The dark coat may be brown, black or grey.
The short-eared dog is an Amazonian canid that is rarely recorded in the wild. Champagne and colleagues compiled diet records from three sites in southeastern Peru across several years in the 2000s. They identified at least 34 food items, including fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, insects, fruit, and seeds.
Seeds appeared in ten fecal samples, and field and camera records showed dogs eating fruit and handling it on the forest floor. The researchers describe a possible role in moving seeds. Their sites included western Amazon reserves, adding records of the short-eared dog's place in the forest food web.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Across three southeastern Peru sites, researchers recorded at least 34 food items for short-eared dogs; seeds appeared in ten fecal samples, and fruit-eating observations suggested possible seed dispersal.