Epicyon - Facts and Figures

Epicyon - Facts and Figures Name: Epicyon (Greek for more than a dog); pronounced EPP-ih-SIGH-on Habitat: Plains of North America Historical Epoch: Middle-Late Miocene (15-5 million years ago) Size and Weight: About five feet long and 200-300 pounds Diet: Meat Distinguishing Characteristics: Large size; quadrupedal posture; big-cat-like head About Epicyon Possibly the largest prehistoric dog that ever lived, Epicyon was a true canid, belonging to the same general family as wolves, hyenas and modern dogs- and was thus a different beast altogether from the non-canid creodont mammals (typified by the giant Sarkastodon) that ruled the North American plains for millions of years before the Miocene epoch. The largest species of Epicyon weighed in the neighborhood of 200 to 300 pounds- as much as, or more than, a full-grown humanand it possessed unusually powerful jaws and teeth, which made its head look more like that of a big cat than a dog or wolf. However, paleontologists dont know much about Epicyons feeding habits:  this megafauna mammal  may have hunted alone or in packs, and it may even have subsisted exclusively on already-dead carcasses, like  a modern hyena. Epicyon is known by three species, all of which were discovered in western North America in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. The lightest variant, Epicyon saevus, was named by the famous American paleontologist Joseph Leidy, and for a time was classified as a species of Aelurodon; adults only weighed about 100 pounds fully grown. E. haydeni was also named by Leidy, and has been synonymized not only with Aelurodon, but with the even more obscure Osteoborus and Tephrocyon as well; this was the largest Epicyon species, weighing more than 300 pounds. The most recent addition to the Epicyon family, E. aelurodontoides, was discovered in Kansas in 1999; you can tell by its species name that it was also close kin to Aelurodon!

Consumer Behaviour dissonance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Consumer Behaviour dissonance - Essay Example In modern theories of consumer behaviour, much stress is given on this particular sequence of events of first knowing one's self and then proceeding to make a purchase. Experts believe "that people purchase a product or brand only if these things are consistent with, enhance, or in some way fit well with the conception they have of themselves" (Ross, 1971, p. 38). Thus, self-image, or self-concept has found a central place in the works of many modern consumer behaviour theorists. "Any bit of knowledge that a person has about himself or the environment is a "cognition," or "cognitive element."" (Wicklund, and Brehm 1976, 2). Self-cognition is not objective, but the sum total of subjective thoughts one has about one's self. It is taken as "the totality of the individual's thoughts and feelings having reference to him/her self as an object" (Rosenberg, 1979). Modern consumer behaviour theories postulate that a consumer who is not aware of his/her self, and fails to achieve "self-congruity" is bound to suffer in the act of purchasing a product from pre-choice anxiety, and/or post-choice regret arising from cognitive dissonance. In theories that attribute a "brand" with personality (Sirgy, 1985), the same principles can well apply to the development of the brand image of a product, as they apply to the consumer's path to proper purchase. Similar theorists hold that consumers select brands by the same process they select companions; "just as people take care in choosing friends who have a similar personality to themselves, so brands, which are symbolic of particular images, are chosen with the same concern" (De Chernatony and McDonald, 1997, p. 145). In today's marketing theories, products are assumed to have a personality that is not only determined by the product's physical characteristics (actual self), but also by the marketing mix promoting a brand image (ideal self) beyond the functionality of the product. In fact, according to many, self-image/brand-image congruity plays a key factor in driving consumer behaviour, and a brand image or product image, like the human self, can possess " a set of attribut es such as friendly, modern, youthful and traditional" (Sirgy, 1985, p.195). The concept of the self that a person holds has many dimensions, and includes both physical and psychological attributes. Self-concept bases itself upon human self-prototypes and moderates the psychological functioning of an individual to exhibit consistent behavioural patterns in the various social roles that a person has to play. Such self-prototypes or self-schemata control, organize, and influence the information processing function of a person that includes the processing of both self-related and other information (Markus, 1977). The selection, interpretation, filtration, and assimilation of incoming information depend upon the self-schemas possessed by each individual (Kihilstrom, 1981). Absorption, rejection, or alteration of new information is based upon its consistency with the existing self-structure (Snygg and Combs, 1949). Earlier research on measuring and analysing self-images was confined to the domain of psychologists who studied the differences that could be seen between the individual's perceptions of his/her real