This hypercarnivorous and highly cursorial genus is distinguished by accessory cusps on the premolars.

It branched from the wolflike canids lineage during the Plio-Pleistocene.

Lycaon sekowei is known from the early Pleistocene epoch of South Africa and was less cursorial.

[1] Some researchers consider the extinct Canis subgenus Xenocyon as ancestral to both Lycaon and Cuon.

[2][3]: p149 Other researchers propose that the extinct Canis (Xenocyon) falconeri and Canis (Xenocyon) lycaonoides should be classified under genus Lycaon, to give the descent of three chronospecies: L. falconeri in the Late Pliocene of Eurasia → L. lycaonoides in the Early Pleistocene and the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene of Eurasia and Africa → L. pictus in the Middle–Late Pleistocene and today the extant African descendant.