In 1886, a large, decidedly odd-looking canine beast was shot and killed by Israel Ammon Hutchins, the grandfather of present-day zoologist Dr Ross E Hutchins, on his ranch in the Madison River Valley north of Ennis, Montana. Moreover, this strange creature was actually preserved, and for many years was exhibited in a glass case by taxidermist-entrepreneur Joseph Sherwood (who had received it in trade from Israel Hutchins) at his store-cum-museum near Henry’s Lake, Idaho. In addition, a decent black and white photo of it was taken and published in Dr Hutchins’s autobiography Trails to Nature’s Mysteries: The Life of a Working Naturalist (1977).