Pseudaelurus

Pseudaelurus (‬†Pseudaelurus quadridentatus (Blainville, 1843)‬)

 

Order: Carnivore

Superfamily: Feloidea

Family: Felidae

Size: males are around 2.2 m long from nose to tail tip, 55 cm in height, ~30 kg of weight.

Time period: lived in Europe, Asia and North America approximately 20-8 million years ago in the Miocene

 

 

Pseudaelurus is a prehistoric cat that lived in the Miocene between approximately twenty and eight million years ago. Traditionally all the Pseudaelurus-grade species from Europe, Asia, and North America have been assigned to a single genus, even though the paraphyletic nature of the group has often being noted. Several authorities have split Pseudaelurus into separate genera or subgenera, including Hyperailurictis, Styriofelis, Miopanthera and Schizailurus. These different groups of Pseudaelurus-grade felids are often considered to have given rise to later felid lineages. It is considered to be a paraphyletic grade ancestral to living felines and pantherines as well as the extinct machairodonts, and is a successor to Proailurus. It originated from Eurasia and was the first cat to reach North America, when it entered the continent at about 18.5 Ma ending a 'cat-gap' of 7 million years. The slender proportions of the animal suggest that it may have been an agile climber of trees.

The genus Styriofelis was originally proposed in 1929 by Kretzoi for the species Pseudaelurus turnaeunsis. Kretzoi also proposed the genus Hyperailurictis for the North American species Pseudaelurus intrepidus, and Miopanthera for Ps. lorteti. In 1964, Beaumont elaborated on Kretzoi's proposal and split Pseudaelurus into three separate genera: Pseudaelurus for the European Ps. quadridentatus, Schizailurus for Ps. lorteti, and Hyperailurictis for Ps. intrepidus.