Machairodus

Machairodus
Temporal range: Middle Miocene to Pleistocene[1]
Skeleton on display at the National Natural History Museum of China
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Suborder: Feliformia
Family: Felidae
Subfamily: Machairodontinae
Tribe: Machairodontini
Genus: Machairodus
Kaup, 1833
Type species
Machairodus aphanistus
Kaup, 1832
Other Species
  • M. alberdiae Ginsburg et al., 1981
  • M. laskerevi Sotnikova, 1992[2]
  • M. robinsoni Kurtén, 1975
  • M. horribilis Schlosser, 1903
  • M. lahayishupup Orcut, 2021

Machairodus (from Greek: μαχαίρα machaíra, 'knife' and Greek: ὀδούς odoús 'tooth')[3] is a genus of large machairodont or ''saber-toothed cat'' that lived in Africa, Eurasia and North America during the late Miocene. It is the animal from which the subfamily Machairodontinae gets its name and has since become a wastebasket taxon over the years as many genera of sabertooth cat have been and are still occasionally lumped into it.

  1. ^ "PBDB". paleobiodb.org. Retrieved 2021-07-04.
  2. ^ Antón (2013).
  3. ^ Roberts, George (1839). An etymological and explanatory dictionary of the terms and language of geology. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans. p. 103. Retrieved 31 December 2021.