Megantereon

Megantereon
Temporal range: Late Pliocene to Middle Pleistocene, 3.6–0.40 Ma
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M. cultridens skeleton
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Suborder: Feliformia
Family: Felidae
Subfamily: †Machairodontinae
Tribe: †Smilodontini
Genus: †Megantereon
Croizet & Jobert, 1828
Type species
Megantereon cultridens
(Cuvier, 1824)
Other species
  • †M. adroveri Pons Moya, 1987
  • †M. ekidoit Werdelin & Lewis, 2000
  • †M. falconeri Pomel, 1853
  • †M. hesperus Gazin, 1933
  • †M. microta Zhu et al., 2015
  • †M. vakshensis Sharapov, 1986
  • †M. whitei Broom, 1937
  • †M. praecox Pilgrim, 1932
Synonyms[1]

M. cultridens

  • M. megantereon Croizet & Jobert, 1828
  • Felis megantereon Bravard, 1828
  • M. macroscelis Pomel, 1853

M. falconeri

  • M. nihowanensis Tielhard de Chardin & Piveteau, 1930
  • M. inexpectatus Tielhard de Chardin, 1939
  • M. lantianensis Hu & Qi, 1978

M. whitei

  • M. gracile Broom, 1948
  • M. eurynodon Ewer, 1955

Megantereon is an extinct genus of prehistoric machairodontine saber-toothed cat that lived in North America, Eurasia, and Africa from the late Pliocene (or possibly the late Miocene) to the Middle Pleistocene. It is a member of the tribe Smilodontini, and closely related to and possibly the ancestor of the famous American sabertooth Smilodon. In comparison to Smilodon it was somewhat smaller, around the size of a jaguar, though it is thought to have had a similar hunting strategy as an ambush predator.

  1. ^ Werdelin, Lars; Flink, Therese (2018). "Chapter 2: The Phylogenetic Context of Smilodon". Smilodon: The Iconic Sabertooth.