Pseudaelurus

Pseudaelurus
Temporal range: Miocene
Pseudaelurus jawbone from the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Germany
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Suborder: Feliformia
Family: Felidae
Genus: †Pseudaelurus
Gervais, 1850
Type species
†Pseudaelurus quadridentatus
(Blainville, 1843) sensu Gervais, 1850
Other Species
  • †P. cuspidatus Wang et al., 1998
  • †P. guangheensis Cao et al., 1990
Synonyms

P. quadridentatus

  • Felis quadridentata Blainville, 1843

Pseudaelurus is a prehistoric cat that lived in Europe, Asia and North America in the Miocene between approximately twenty and eight million years ago. It is considered to be a paraphyletic grade ancestral to living felines and pantherines as well as the extinct machairodonts (saber-tooths), 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.[1][2] The slender proportions of the animal, together with its short, viverrid-like legs, suggest that it may have been an agile climber of trees.[3]

  1. ^ Tedford, R. H.; Galusha, T.; Skinner, M. F.; Taylor, B. E.; Fields, R. W.; Macdonald, J. R.; Rensberger, J. M.; Webb, S. D.; Whistler, D.P. (1987). "Faunal succession and biochronology of the Arikareean through Hemphillian interval (late Oligocene through earliest Pliocene epochs) in North America". In Woodburne, M. O. (ed.). Cenozoic mammals of North America: Geochronology and biostratigraphy. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 153–210. ISBN 0-520-05392-3.
  2. ^ Rothwell, Tom (2003). "Phylogenetic systematics of North American Pseudaelurus (Carnivora: Felidae)" (PDF). American Museum Novitates (3403): 1–64. doi:10.1206/0003-0082(2003)403<0001:psonap>2.0.co;2. hdl:2246/2829. ISSN 0003-0082. S2CID 67753626.
  3. ^ Turner, Alan; Antón, Mauricio (1997). The Big Cats and their fossil relatives. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-10228-3.